Dingwall's Sandstone Press is named publisher of the year at the Saltire Awards in year including winning Man Booker International prize

SANDSTONE Press won the Saltire Society Scottish publisher of the year award on Saturday at the organisation’s 2019 Literary Awards in Edinburgh.

The Dingwall-based publisher has provided a platform for Scottish subjects and taken risks with translated fiction, resulting in publishing the winner of this year’s Man Booker International Prize.

There was a second award for the publisher when Sandstone’s assistant publisher Kay Farrell was joint winner alongside Alan Windram of Little Door Press of the Saltire Society emerging publisher of the year award, presented in partnership with Publishing Scotland.

The Saltire Society announced the winners of the awards at a ceremony at the National Museum of Scotland on Saturday.

Other awards made were to Kirstie Blair, who received the prestigious Saltire Society Scottish book of the year award for her Working Verse In Victorian Scotland: Poetry, Press, Community (published by Oxford University Press).

And in a new award for 2019 Alasdair Gray was awarded the first Saltire Society Scottish lifetime achievement award for his contribution to Scottish literature.

The Saltire Society and its members believe that culture is at the heart of who we are as individuals, as a community and as a country and work tirelessly to promote all that’s best about it.

It is inclusive in outlook, international in perspective and independent in its views.

Sandstone Press heard at the weekend that one of their titles was up for another prize. Marilyn Booth’s translation of Celestial Bodies– which won the International Man Booker Award in May – has been shortlisted for the Society Of Authors’ Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize.

Managing director, Robert Davidson, said: "We are delighted to be selected as Scottish Publisher of the Year, doubly pleased to be first to win the award twice, and triply pleased that Kay Farrell is joint emerging publisher.

"We will carry this honour with us through the coming year and display it with pride.

"Scotland’s publishers are doing great work for the country world wide. We are so pleased just to be part of it. It all grows deeper, wider and stronger. Let’s keep building!"

Assistant publisher Kay Farrell said: "It’s a real honour to be recognised by a group as prestigious as the Saltire Society. This has been an amazing year for myself and all of us at Sandstone. These awards round off the year brilliantly, we are just delighted."