... was born in Glasgow in 1976. His father left when he was young, and he was brought up by his alcoholic mother who, in his words, "died very quietly of addiction one day." Stuart was 16 at the time. He lived with his elder brother for a while, then in a boarding house. He received a bachelor's degree from the Scottish College of Textiles, and a master's degree from the Royal College of Art in London, and at the age of 24 he moved to New York to take up a career in fashion design. He worked for many brands, including Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren.
He began writing in his spare time. Shuggie Bain was his first novel; it has several autobiographical elements. It was only the second novel by a Scottish writer to win the Booker Prize – the first being James Kelman's How Late It Was, How Late (the 1994 winner), which Stuart has named as the book that changed his life, with its setting among working–class Glaswegians and its use of their dialect.
© Haydn Thompson 2021