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Jackie Kay has won the £30,000 Scottish Book of the Year award for her autobiography Red Dust Road (Picador).
The award, which is run by Creative Scotland, was presented to Kay by broadcaster Jenni Murray on Friday (26th August) at an event at the Edinburgh International Book Festival.
Kay was born in Edinburgh to a Scottish nurse and Nigerian student and she was adopted at birth by a white couple, who brought her up in Glasgow. The book is her account of the search to find her parents.
Kay said: "Red Dust Road isn't just about me; it's about my family in all of its complexities. I happened to write the book, but in a way it feels like my whole family is the winner. The book doesn't just belong to me. And now it seems like it has a whole life of its own in the heart-warming and unexpected way that readers have been finding connections to their own life in it."
Dr Gavin Wallace, chair of the judging panel and portfolio manager for literature, publishing and language, said: "Written with an astonishing immediacy and directness of voice and with all Kay’s novelistic and poetic skills, [Red Dust Road] is a courageous, affirmative, and lyrical memoir of the author’s search not just for her birth parents, but for self-identity and beyond."