Sundial Scottish Arts Council Awards Winners Announced

The Category Winners of the 2007 Sundial Scottish Arts Council Awards have been announced. This is the first time the SAC Book Awards have been split into categories, with each winner receiving £5,000. The category winners will now go forward to the final Sundial Scottish Arts Council Book of the Year Award, worth £20,000, which will be announced at the Edinburgh International Book Festival on 18th August 2007.

Kirsty Gunn's The Boy and the Sea won the Fiction category. The runners up were:

• One Good Turn by Kate Aktinson
• Wish I Was Here by Jackie Kay
• Matters of Life & Death by Bernard MacLaverty
• The Testament of Gideon Mack by James Robertson

John Burnside's masterful A Lie About My Father won the non-fiction category. The runners up were:

• Calum's Road by Roger Hutchison
• Occupational Hazards by Rory Stewart

The winner of the First Book award was Maggie Fergusson's George MacKay Brown: A Life. The runners up were:

• White Ghost Girls by Alice Greenaway
• The Observations by Jane Harris
• The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney

Robin Robertson's Swithering won the Poetry Book award. The runners up were:

• Punk With Dulcimer by Anna Crowe
• Bad Shaman Blues by W.N. Herbert