English trio up for national awards

Not one but three writers at the University of St Andrews have been shortlisted for the nation’s biggest literary prize.

John Burnside, Robert Crawford and Don Paterson have each been nominated for the Scottish Arts Council’s Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust 2010 Book Awards.

Professor Crawford is shortlisted in the non-fiction section for his biography of Robert Burns, The Bard, while Professor Burnside and Don Paterson appear in the poetry category for their respective works The Hunt in the Forest and Rain.

The St Andrews trio are among sixteen Scottish authors in the running to receive £30,000 and the overall Scotland’s Book of the Year title. This year’s authors have been recognised for their literary excellence in the themes of love, vanity, loyalty, hope and despair.

The individual category winners will be announced on 7 April, while the overall Book of the Year winner will be revealed at the Borders Book Festival on 18 June in Melrose.

For further information on the awards, visit: http://www.scottisharts.org.uk/bookawards

ENDS

Issued by the Press Office, University of St Andrews

Contact Gayle Cook, Senior Communications Manager on 01334 467227 / 462529, mobile 07900 050 103, or email [email protected]

Ref:  English trio 220310

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