Ministers save threatened book prize

MINISTERS stepped in yesterday to salvage one of Scotland's most prestigious book prizes, in a move hailed as "unusual" for literary figures.

The Saltire Society had said its 2008 Scottish Literature Awards would be the last, after nearly 30 years of honouring the cream of the country's writers, because it had failed to find a new commercial sponsor.

The author James Kelman, Scotland's only Booker Prize winner, yesterday won the £5,000 Book of the Year Prize for his novel Kieron Smith, Boy.

Linda Fabiani, the culture minister, announced the Scottish Government backing as part of the Homecoming Year 2009 celebrations of Robert Burns's 250th anniversary.

Catherine Lockerbie, director of the Edinburgh International Book Festival, welcomed the "interesting and unusual move". The judging system of a secret ballot would ensure the prize's independence, she said.

Ian Duncan won the National Library of Scotland research prize for Scott's Shadow. The history award went to Alex Woolf for From Pictland to Alba.

The Royal Mail First Book prize went to Andrew Nicoll for The Good Mayor. He dedicated his award to a reviewer who had attacked the book's "banal stereotypes" and "burden of cliché".