Early life
Stuart was born in 1976 in Sighthill, a housing estate in Glasgow, Scotland. [2] He was the youngest of three siblings. His father left him and his family when Stuart was young, and he was raised by a single mother who was battling alcoholism and addiction. [3] His mother died from alcoholism-related health issues when he was 16. Subsequently, when he went on to write his debut Booker Prize-winning novel, Shuggie Bain , the book would be inspired by his struggles, his mother's struggles as she battled alcoholism and his relationship with his mother. [4] Speaking about his mother, he says: "My mother died very quietly of addiction one day." [5] After his mother's death, he lived with his older brother before moving into a boarding house when he was 17. [3]
Writing on Literary Hub about working-class living in the late 1970s and 1980s, Stuart notes that he grew up in a house without books and surrounded by poverty. This was the time when Thatcher-era economic policies had "decimated the working man", moving industry away from the west coast of Scotland, leaving behind mass unemployment, alcoholism, and drug abuse. [6]
He received a bachelor's degree from the Scottish College of Textiles (now Heriot-Watt University) and a master's degree from the Royal College of Art in London. [3] He had no formal education in literature, and notes that while he wanted to study English literature in college, he was discouraged from choosing the subject by a teacher who mentioned that it would "not suit someone from his background", resulting in Stuart subsequently studying textiles instead. [3]
Career
Stuart moved to New York City at the age of 24 to begin a career in fashion design. He worked for many brands, including Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, Banana Republic and Jack Spade, for more than 20 years. [3] Stuart secretly started to write his first novel while he was balancing 12-hour shifts as a senior director of design at Banana Republic. [7] [8]
Prior to his first novel being published, his works were featured in The New Yorker and LitHub . [1]
His first novel, Shuggie Bain , won the 2020 Booker Prize, chosen by a judging panel comprising Margaret Busby (chair), Lee Child, Sameer Rahim, Lemn Sissay, and Emily Wilson. [9] [10] Stuart became the second Scottish author to win the Booker Prize in its 51-year history, [11] after it was awarded in 1994 to James Kelman for How Late It Was, How Late , [12] a book Stuart has credited with changing his life, since it was "one of the first times he had seen his people and dialect on the page". [13] [14] [15] Stuart said: "When James won in the mid-90s, Scottish voices were seen as disruptive and outside the norm." [9]
Shuggie Bain was also longlisted for the 2021 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, [16] shortlisted for the 2020 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, [17] and was a finalist for both the 2020 Kirkus Prize [18] and the 2020 National Book Award for Fiction. [19] [20] However, when Stuart wrote the novel, responses from publishers were not as encouraging, with the book being rejected by 32 US publishing companies [21] (as well as a dozen in the UK), [22] before it was finally sold to American independent publisher Grove Atlantic, [7] who published it in hardcover on 11 February 2020. [23] Shuggie Bain was later published in the United Kingdom by the Picador imprint of Pan Macmillan. [24] As of April 2022, Shuggie Bain has sold more than 1.5 million copies globally. [25] [26]
The novel received generally favourable review coverage once it was published, including in The Observer , [27] The New York Times , [28] The Scotsman , [29] the TLS , [30] The Hindu , [31] and elsewhere. The book was praised for its authentic portrayal of post-industrial working-class Glasgow of the 1980s and early 1990s, and also for his capture of the "wry, indefatigable Glaswegian voice in all its various shades of wit, anger and hope." [5] Speaking at the Booker Prize award ceremony, Margaret Busby, chair of the panel, noted that the book was destined to be a classic, and went on to describe the work as a "moving, immersive and nuanced portrait of a tight-knit social world, its people and its values." [9]
In a conversation with 2019 Booker winner Bernardine Evaristo on 23 November 2020, livestreamed as a Southbank Centre event, Stuart said: "One of my biggest regrets I think is that growing up so poor I almost had to elevate myself to the middle class to turn around to tell a working-class story." [21] Discussing the "middle-class" publishers' rejections he had received for Shuggie Bain, he told Evaristo: "Everyone was writing these really gorgeous letters. They were saying 'Oh my god this will win all of the awards and it's such an amazing book and I have never read anything like that, but I have no idea how to market it'." [21] Stuart said in a 2021 conversation with the Duchess of Cornwall that winning the Booker Prize transformed his life. [32] Shuggie Bain went on to win other accolades, including being chosen both as Debut Book of the Year and Overall Book of the Year at the 2021 British Book Awards. [33]
In November 2020, Stuart revealed that he had finished his second novel, tentatively titled Loch Awe, also set in mid-1990s Glasgow. [34] The book is a love story between two young men, set against the backdrop of post-industrial Glasgow, with its territorial gangs, and divisions across sectarian lines. In his words, the book is about "toxic masculinity" and the violence that can stem from pressures on working-class boys to "man-up". [35] [36] The novel was published under the title Young Mungo by Grove Press on 5 April 2022, [37] and by Picador on 14 April 2022. [38] Prior to its publication, it was described by Oprah Daily as "a beautiful novel about family love and the dangers of being different in a violent, hyper-masculine world", [39] and Kirkus Reviews concluded: "Romantic, terrifying, brutal, tender, and, in the end, sneakily hopeful. What a writer." [40]
In 2021, Stuart received an honorary doctorate from Heriot-Watt University. [41] [42]
In November 2022, it was confirmed that Shuggie Bain was to be made into a television drama series, adapted by Stuart himself, to be filmed in Scotland and broadcast on BBC One and iPlayer. [43] [44]
Stuart was the subject of a film profile entitled "Douglas Stuart: Love, Hope and Grit", first shown in November 2022 in Alan Yentob's BBC One television arts documentary series Imagine . [45] [46]
