James Tait Black Awards 2016 Announced

The James Tait Black Award is Britain’s longest running literary award, founded up by the widow of publisher James Tait Black in 1919. The prize is awarded annually at the Edinburgh International Book Festival and the winning book is chosen from 400 books read by students and academics at the University of Edinburgh. The prestigious award carries £10,000 prize money to the winners, and of course the esteem of winning such a fantastic award.

On Monday evening, the James Tait Black Awards 2016 were announced as James Shapiro’s 1606: William Shakespeare and the Year of Lear, and Benjamin Markovits for his sixth novel, You Don’t Have to Live Like This.

1606: William Shakespeare and the Year of the Lear is a non-fiction works and the natural sequel to 1599, the author’s previous biopic about another interesting year in the Bard’s life. The book looks at the events of the year, around the life of Shakespeare and how those events shaped the Bard’s writing. The previous novel 1599 took home the 2006 Samuel Johnson Prize and we’re not at all surprised that this further microscopic look at the Bard is an award winner too.

1606: William Shakespeare and the Year of the Lear (US)
1606: William Shakespeare and the Year of the Lear (UK)

For the fiction category, You Don’t Have to Live Like This is Markovits sixth novel and is set in a run down district of Detriot in 2007 during the financial crash. The book follows a group of idealists who move to the area as part of a social experiment and it’s been marked as an ‘astonishing state-of-the-nation masterpiece’.

You Don’t Have to Live Like This (US)
You Don’t Have to Live Like This (UK)

As the longest running literary prize in the country, the James Tait Black Awards has seen plenty of winners, and these include well known authors such as Cormac McCarthy, Evelyn Waugh, Martin Amos and others. A third category, the prize for drama was added in 2013 and this will be announced at the festival next week.