Dundee International Book Prize
The Dundee International Book Prize is a biennial competition open to new authors, offering a prize of £10,000 and publication by Polygon Books. Past winners have included Andrew Murray Scott, Claire-Marie Watson and Malcolm Archibald. It is organised in Dundee, Scotland.
The prize was announced in 1996 and was, initially for unpublished manuscripts of novel length set in the city. The initiative, the brainchild of Carol Pope, then University of Dundee Press Officer, galvanised the local writing scene and the final tally of 84 completed entries included many from the local area. The winning novel, Tumulus, was described by the judging panel, which included award-winning playwright Liz Lochhead, as "a tour-de-force". It was a surprising novel, avoiding the obvious Dundee cultural icons, which played upon the concept of Dundee's celebration of its own cultural status. The novel was, loosely, a mystery, utilising two milieus, 1970s Dundee and the present day and is full of deft humour and black sarcasm as well as many scabrous tales of bohemian life, squalor, flared jeans, rock music and 'dope' etc. Critics were impressed and it was accorded a mention alongside fiction by such contemporary urban Scots writers as Irvine Welsh, Michel Faber, Toni Davidson and Alan Warner. Scott followed up his début with a second Tayside-based novel, Estuary Blue, which concentrated on local corruption and redevelopment and has since gone on to write other books including, in 2007, the novel 'The Mushroom Club' and in 2008, 'The Big J'.
The second prize, awarded in 2002, went to another local writer, Claire-Marie Watson, for her novel The Curewife, a historical fiction loosely based upon the tale of the city's last witch, Grissel Jaffray.
Malcolm Archibald was the 2004 winner for Whales for the Wizard, another historical fiction based on Dundee's seafaring tradition. Two other writers, Claire Collison and Catherine Czerkawska also had their novels published. The prize was then redesignated the 'Dundee International Book Prize', to reflect the increasing interest in it from across the world.