Somerset Maugham Award

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The Somerset Maugham Award is a British literary prize given each May by the Society of Authors. It is awarded to who they judge to be the best writer or writers under the age of thirty-five of a book published in the past year. The prize was instituted in 1947 by William Somerset Maugham and thus bears his name: the award is currently £6000 per winner, to be spent on foreign travel. The total fund for each year is £12000 [1].

Since 1964, multiple winners have usually been chosen in the same year. In 1975, the award was not given. The Award has twice been won by the son of a previous winner: Kingsley Amis (winner in 1955) was the father of Martin Amis (1974), and Nigel Kneale (1950) the father of Matthew Kneale (1988).

[edit] Full list of winners

Year Author Book
1947 A. L. Barker Innocents
1948 P. H. Newby Journey to the Interior
1949 Hamish Henderson Elegies for the Dead in Cyrenaica
1950 Nigel Kneale Tomato Cain & Other Stories
1951 Roland Camberton Scamp
1952 Francis King The Dividing Stream
1953 Emyr Humphreys Hear and Forgive
1954 Doris Lessing Five Short Novels
1955 Kingsley Amis Lucky Jim
1956 Elizabeth Jennings A Way of Looking
1957 George Lamming In the Castle of My Skin
1958 John Wain Preliminary Essays
1959 Thom Gunn A Sense Of Movement
1960 Ted Hughes The Hawk in the Rain
1961 V. S. Naipaul Miguel Street
1962 Hugh Thomas The Spanish Civil War
1963 David Storey Flight Into Camden
1964 Dan Jacobson Time of Arrival
John le Carré The Spy Who Came In From the Cold
1965 Peter Everett Negatives
1966 Michael Frayn The Tin Men
Julian Mitchell The White Father
1967 B. S. Johnson Trawl
Andrew Sinclair The Better Half
1968 Paul Bailey At The Jerusalem
Seamus Heaney Death of a Naturalist
1969 Angela Carter Several Perceptions
1970 Jane Gaskell A Sweet Sweet Summer
Piers Paul Read Monk Dawson
1971 Susan Hill I'm the King of the Castle
Richard Barber The Knight and Chivalry
Michael Hastings Tussy Is Me
1972 Douglas Dunn Terry Street
Gillian Tindall Fly Away Home
1973 Peter Prince Play Things
Paul Strathern A Season in Abyssinia
Jonathan Street Prudence Dictates
1974 Martin Amis The Rachel Papers
1975 Gabriel Josipovici
1976 Dominic Cooper The Dead of Winter
Ian McEwan First Love, Last Rites
1977 Richard Holmes Shelley: The Pursuit
1978 Tom Paulin A State of Justice
Nigel Williams My Life Closed Twice
1979 Helen Hodgman Jack & Jill
Sara Maitland Daughter of Jerusalem
1980 Max Hastings Bomber Command
Christopher Reid Arcadia
Humphrey Carpenter The Inklings
1981 Julian Barnes Metroland
Clive Sinclair Hearts of Gold
A. N. Wilson The Healing Art
1982 William Boyd A Good Man in Africa
Adam Mars-Jones Lantern Lecture
1983 Lisa St Aubin de Teran Keepers of the House
1984 Peter Ackroyd The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde
Timothy Garton Ash The Polish Revolution: Solidarity
Sean O'Brien The Indoor Park
1985 Blake Morrison Dark Glasses
Jeremy Reed By the Fisheries
Jane Rogers Her Living Image
1986 Patricia Ferguson Family Myths and Legends
Adam Nicolson Frontiers
Tim Parks Tongues of Flame
1987 Stephen Gregory The Cormorant
Janni Howker Isaac Campion
Andrew Motion The Lamberts
1988 Jimmy Burns The Land That Lost Its Heroes
Carol Ann Duffy Selling Manhattan
Matthew Kneale Whore Banquets
1989 Rupert Christiansen Romantic Affinities
Alan Hollinghurst The Swimming Pool Library
Deirdre Madden The Birds of the Innocent Wood
1990 Mark Hudson Our Grandmothers' Drums
Sam North The Automatic Man
Nicholas Shakespeare The Vision of Elena Silves
1991 Peter Benson The Other Occupant
Lesley Glaister Honour Thy Father
Helen Simpson Four Bare Legs in a Bed
1992 Geoff Dyer But Beautiful
Lawrence Norfolk Lemprière's Dictionary
Gerard Woodward Householder
1993 Dea Birkett Jella
Duncan McLean Bucket of Tongues
Glyn Maxwell Out of the Rain
1994 Jackie Kay Other Lovers
A. L. Kennedy Looking For the Possible Dance
Philip Marsden Crossing Place
1995 Patrick French Younghusband
Simon Garfield The End of Innocence
Kathleen Jamie The Queen of Sheba
Laura Thompson The Dogs
1996 Katherine Pierpoint Truffle Beds
Alan Warner Morvern Callar
1997 Rhidian Brook The Testimony of Taliesin Jones
Kate Clanchy Slattern
Philip Hensher Kitchen Venom
Francis Spufford I May Be Some Time
1998 Rachel Cusk The Country Life
Jonathan Rendall This Bloody Mary Is the Last Thing I Own
Kate Summerscale The Queen of Whale Cay
Robert Twigger Angry White Pyjamas
1999 Andrea Ashworth Once in a House on Fire
Paul Farley The Boy from the Chemist is Here to See You
Giles Foden The Last King of Scotland
Jonathan Freedland Bring Home the Revolution
2000 Bella Bathurst The Lighthouse Stevensons
Sarah Waters Affinity
2001 Edward Platt Leadville—A Biography of the A40
Ben Rice Pobby And Dingan
2002 Charlotte Hobson Black Earth City
Marcel Theroux The Confessions of Mycroft Holmes: a paper chase
2003 William Fiennes, author The Snow Geese
Hari Kunzru The Impressionist
Jon McGregor If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things
2004 Charlotte Mendelson Daughters of Jerusalem
Mark Blayney Two Kinds of Silence
Robert Macfarlane Mountains of the Mind
2005 Justin Hill Passing Under Heaven
Maggie O'Farrell The Distance Between Us
2006 Chris Cleave Incendiary
Zadie Smith On Beauty
Owen Sheers Skirrid Hill
2007 Horatio Clare Running For The Hills
James Scudamore The Amnesia Clinic

[edit] External links