NICOLA Sturgeon has congratulated acclaimed Scottish author Graeme Macrae Burnet after his latest novel saw him make the longlist for the Booker Prize.
The Kilmarnock-born author last made the long list for the prestigious literary prize in 2019, with his psychological crime thriller His Bloody Project.
Now his 2021 novel Case Study, which follows the story of a woman who seeks out a psychotherapist who she blames for the death of her sister, has made the list of 13 top fiction books.
Macrae Burnet is in with a chance of receiving the £50,000 cash prize and international recognition at a London ceremony later this year.
Responding to the long list news, First Minister Sturgeon said: "Many congrats to the very talented @GMacraeBurnet on his second @TheBookerPrizes nomination.
“Overall this is an interesting list. I’ve read three (Booth; Small Things Like These & Case Study - all excellent). After Sappho is next on my tbr pile & hope to read some of the others too.”
Macrae Burnet said he was “unfeasibly thrilled” to be on the longlist, and congratulated his independent publisher Saraband as well as his literary agent.
“Huge congrats to all the longlistees,” he wrote. “Gin fizz and blancmange all round.”
The author responded to Sturgeon’s well wishes, saying: “Many thanks, Nicola. Like you, I’m looking forward to exploring the other titles.”
In 2020, Douglas Stuart became the second Scot to ever win the Booker Prize in its 53-year history with his debut novel Shuggie Bain.
Cultural historian and writer Neil MacGregor is the chair of judges on the Booker Prize panel, and works alongside academic and broadcaster Shahidha Bari, historian Helen Castor, author and critic M John Harrison, and novelist and poet Alain Mabanckou - who all read 169 submissions this year.
Director of the Booker Prize Foundation Gaby Wood said: “The 2022 Booker judges come from very different corners of the reading world, yet from the moment they met they have revelled in each other’s opinions and delighted in each other’s company.
“The result is a set of books that are sometimes serious but never sombre, whose authors engage you with their wit, even as you absorb their dramatic, painful or provocative subject matter. It’s in this playfulness, of form or tone, that this year’s fiction is at its best.”
This year's long list features the oldest (87) and youngest (13) authors in the history of the Prize.
The full list of nominees is as follows:
- Glory by NoViolet Bulawayo
- Trust by Hernan Diaz
- The Trees by Percival Everett
- Booth by Karen Joy Fowler
- Treacle Walker by Alan Garner
- The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shahan Karunatilaka
- Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
- Case Study by Graeme Macrae Burnet
- The Colony by Audrey Magee
- Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies by Maddie Mortimer
- Nightcrawling by Leila Mottley
- After Sappho by Selby Lynn Schwartz
- Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout
