Awards Smith

I was delighted to see Ali Smith win this year’s Costa Novel of the Year prize for How To Be Both (your report, 6 January).

This is the culmination of a great year for Ali Smith, which saw her win the Goldsmiths prize for innovative fiction as well as being short-listed for the Man Booker prize.

Not least among the many accolades deservingly given to How To Be Both was the 2014 Saltire Literary Book of the Year award, presented back in November.

With new sponsors and an expanded line-up of award categories in 2014, the Saltire Literary Awards has become the largest and arguably most prestigious recognition of literary excellence in Scotland.

The Saltire Society was able to recognise Ali Smith’s outstanding talents as far back as 1995, when she won that year’s First Book of the Year award for her impressive debut Free Love and Other Stories.

In 2015, I look forward to seeing the Saltire Literary Awards sustaining a great track record in recognising and celebrating Scotland’s wealth of writing talent, both new and established. Many congratulations also to Ali Smith on her latest, richly deserved win.

Jim Tough

Saltire Society

High Street