The Highland Society of London and Moniack Mhor Writers’ Centre have announced the Longlist for the 2021 Highland Book Prize.
11 titles have been selected from more than 70 submissions for this important literary award, and include auto-fiction, environmental non-fiction, an exploration of Highland slave history, Gaelic fiction and poetry, and Shetlandic poetry.
Many of the submissions engaged with Highland culture, heritage, or landscape. Submissions were also invited from authors, writing on any subject, who were born or brought up in the Highlands or had settled in the area as their home. Each title was reviewed and scored multiple times by a volunteer panel of 180 readers from around the world.
The 2021 longlisted titles are:
- An Seachdamh Tonn | The Seventh Wave, Sandaidh NicDhòmhnaill Jones
(Gaelic poetry, Acair)
- Ben Dorain: a Conversation with a Mountain, Garry MacKenzie
(Poetry, The Irish Pages Press/Cló An Mhíl Bhuí)
- Borges and Me: An Encounter, Jay Parini
(Autofiction, Canongate)
- Hiort, Iain F. Macleod
(Gaelic fiction, CLÀR)
- In a Veil of Mist, Donald S. Murray
(Fiction, Saraband)
- Islands of Abandonment: Life in the Post-Human Landscape, Cal Flyn
(Non-fiction, William Collins)
- Of Stone and Sky, Merryn Glover
(Fiction, Birlinn)
- Regeneration: The Rescue of a Wild Land, Andrew Painting
(Non-fiction, Birlinn)
- Slaves and Highlanders: Silenced Histories of Scotland and the Caribbean, David Alston
(Non-fiction, Edinburgh University Press)
- The Stone Age, Jen Hadfield
(Poetry, Picador)
- VEEVE, Christine De Luca
(Poetry, Mariscat Press)
Each title on the list will now be considered by the Judging Panel, who will announce the shortlist in March 2022. The winning title will be awarded in May 2022.
* The organisers of the Highland Book Prize acknowledge the withdrawal of Deep Wheel Orcadia by Harry Josephine Giles from the 2021 Highland Book Prize Longlist. Our statement is available to read here.
