• New York-based Scottish writer Douglas Stuart has won the prestigious Booker Prize for his autobiographical debut novel ‘Shuggie Bain’, beating five other shortlisted authors including Indian-origin Avni Doshi.

• The 44-year-old Stuart is only the second Scot to have won the prestigious literary prize. The book, based on his own childhood, tells of a young boy growing up during tough years in Glasgow with a mother who is battling addiction.

• Dubai-based Indian-origin writer Doshi, who was shortlisted among the final six authors for her debut novel ‘Burnt Sugar’, lost out on the top prize.

• She was in the running for this year’s prize alongside Zimbabwean writer Tsitsi Dangarembga for the third novel in her trilogy ‘This Mournable Body’ on a shortlist otherwise dominated by US authors — Diane Cook for ‘The New Wilderness’, Maaza Mengiste for ‘The Shadow King’ and Brandon Taylor for ‘Real Life’.

• The Booker Prize for Fiction was first awarded in 1969 and is open to writers of any nationality, writing in English and published in the United Kingdom or Ireland.

• The rules of the prize were changed at the end of 2013 to embrace the English language “in all its vigour, vitality, versatility and glory”, opening it up to writers beyond the UK and Commonwealth, provided they were writing novels in English that are published in the UK.

• The winner receives £50,000 as well as the £2,500 awarded to each of the six shortlisted authors.

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