Scottish author Douglas Stuart won the Booker Prize for fiction on Thursday with his first novel "Shuggie Bain", with judges saying his tale of love and alcoholism set in Glasgow in 1980s was destined to be a classic.
The 44-year-old Stuart, who wins 50,000 pounds ($66,000) and is only the second Scot to have won the prestigious literary prize, said he was stunned.
The book, based on his own childhood, tells of a young boy growing up during tough years in Glasgow with a mother who is battling addiction. Stuart's own mother died of alcoholism when he was 16.