Booker-winning Shuggie Bain shifts 500k copies globally

Douglas Stuart's Booker-winning novel Shuggie Bain (Picador) has now sold 500,000 copies in all formats globally, Pan Macmillan has said.

The novel—which will see its paperback release on Thursday (15th April)—first hit international markets in March 2020 and the UK in August 2020.

Pan Macmillan said: “Stuart’s first novel has been notable for its sales in his hometown of Glasgow, throughout the UK, and across the world, from Brisbane to Banjul, Jaipur to Johannesburg, Singapore to Stockholm.”

A mural celebrating the novel has been unveiled in Glasgow (©Flux Video)

Alongside winning the Booker, the novel was shortlisted for the US National Book Award and was chosen as the Waterstones Scottish Book of the Year for 2020. A 30 foot mural celebrating the book was even created in Glasgow last week after being commissioned by Picador.

TV and film rights have been sold to Scott Rudin/A24 for a planned TV series, while translation rights have sold in 38 languages to date, including Marathi, Tamil, Georgian, Mongolian and, following an eight-way auction, in China.

Through Nielsen BookScan alone, the book has sold 102,421 hardback copies in the UK, excluding lockdown sales. The Booker win took place in November when bookshops were closed and Nielsen could not publish data.