McBride, Cumming win 2017 James Tait Black Prizes

The winners of the James Tait Black Prizes for fiction and biography—the UK’s oldest literary awards—have been announced.

Eimear McBride’s second novel The Lesser Bohemians (Text) has won the £10,000 (A$16,491) prize for fiction.

The Lesser Bohemians, which depicts the relationship between an 18-year-old Irish girl living in London and an older actor, was described by the judges as ‘an extraordinary rendering of a young woman’s consciousness as she eagerly embarks on a new life in London’.

Laura Cumming won the £10,000 biography prize for The Vanishing Man (Vintage), which explores the life of Victorian bookseller John Snare, who believed he had found a lost painting by Velázquez.

Founded in 1919, the James Tait Black Prizes are awarded annually by the University of Edinburgh and judged by senior academics at the university with the assistance of postgraduate student judges.

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Category: International news