A FORMER chicken factory worker has won one of Britain's leading literary awards before his first book has been published.
The novel, Fresh, was written by the Scots-born author Mark McNay, who is being tipped to follow in the footsteps of James Kelman, Jeff Torrington and Alan Warner.
The former window cleaner, who was brought up in the Lanarkshire mining village of Twechar, said the Arts Foundation £10,000 prize would allow him to repair his beat-up car and pay his rent.
Set over 24 hours in Glasgow's east end, his dark and gritty book follows a factory worker who is threatened with death by his psychotic brother unless he repays a loan.
Published by Canongate, it was inspired by One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's bleak account of life in a Soviet labour camp.
Although Fresh will not be published until April it is already being tipped as a book of the year.
Andrew O'Hagan, who judged the award along with Ali Smith and Erica Wagner, said: "There are many aspects of life in Britain that somehow don't find their way into novels that often - or at all - so we found Mark McNay's book to be surprising and inventive and new. As a writer he seems quite unafraid, discovering truths and telling stories where he finds them without the need to lecture you or duck the problems."
McNay, who now lives in Norwich, said he based his novel in Scotland so he could highlight its culture, language and humour.
He said: "I'm best pleased. Now I can repair my car and write without having to worry about paying the rent."
Jamie Byng, Canongate publisher, said: "I think it is the first of many prizes he is going to win and we are all delighted for him."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article