Hazard wins Saltire Society Scottish Book of the Year Award for Womb

Leah Hazard has won the Saltire Society Scottish Book of the Year Award for Womb (Virago), while poet, playwright and former Scots Makar Liz Lochhead was awarded the Saltire Society Lifetime Achievement Award for her contribution to Scottish literature.

Awards were presented in six literary categories including The Saltire Society Fiction Book of the Year, won by Martin MacInnes for In Ascension (Atlantic Books). Victoria MacKenzie’s For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy on my Little Pain (Bloomsbury Publishing Inc) won The Saltire Society First Book of the Year award. 

The Saltire Society Poetry Book of the Year was presented to Taylor Strickland for his collection Dastram/Delirium (Broken Sleep Books). Moreover, The Saltire Society Research Book of the Year Award was won by The Old Red Sandstone or New Walks in an Old Field by Hugh Miller, edited by Michael A Taylor and Ralph O’Connor (NMS Enterprises Limited), and The Saltire Society History Book of the Year was awarded to David Taylor for The People are not There (Birlinn).

Three publishing industry awards were also announced, including The Saltire Society Book Cover Design of the Year, won by designer Thomas MacGregor for Rub-A-Dub-Dub (P&H Books) and The Saltire Society Publisher of the Year, awarded to Edinburgh University Press and Charco Press jointly. The Saltire Society Emerging Publisher of the Year, awarded in partnership with Publishing Scotland, was also presented to Grace Balfour-Harle, desk editor at Edinburgh University Press and Melissa Tombere, editorial assistant at Canongate Books.

Scotland’s National Book Awards have been awarded by the Saltire Society since 1937. All entrants must be born in Scotland, live in Scotland or their books must be about Scotland.  

The winners were announced at a ceremony in Glasgow on Thursday 7th December. The winner of each category was awarded a trophy by Inverness-based artist Simon Baker of Evergreen Studios and the winners of the literary awards each receive a cash prize of £2,000, with the winner of the Saltire Society Book of the Year receiving a further £4,000. 

Hazard’s Womb won the Saltire Society Non-Fiction Book of the Year before going on to claim the overall Saltire Society Scottish Book of the Year prize. It was described by the judges as a “searingly compassionate, transformational, and aspirational piece of work that is inclusive of all the different experiences". 

Sarah Mason, executive director of the Saltire Society, said: “The 2023 Saltire Society Literary Awards illustrate the amazing talent Scotland has and offer us an invaluable opportunity to celebrate the quality and creativity of the work. Each of our award winners and shortlisted authors, publishers, and designers deserves huge congratulations for contributing exceptional works to Scotland’s literary canon."

Poet and playwright Lochhead, recipient of The Saltire Society Lifetime Achievement Award 2023, has written numerous plays, translated and adapted Molière’s Tartuffe into Scots. She has published 10 collections of poetry, her latest of which, A Handsel (Polygon), was published in October this year. In 2005 she was made Poet Laureate of Glasgow and in 2011 became Scots Makar.

The judges commented: “Liz Lochhead is the very epitome of an exceptional and versatile writer who has made an outstanding contribution to the Scottish literary ecology. She has been a literary trailblazer, inspiring generations of young people who study her work, and writers wishing to emulate her authenticity."