Walter Scott Prize 2025: Celebrating Historical Fiction

Prize Announcement & Award Details

The winner of the 2025 Walter Scott Reward will be disclosed on 12th June in an online event at the Borders Publication Celebration in Melrose, Scotland, and will certainly receive ₤ 25,000. Each shortlisted author is granted ₤ 1,500.

The Importance of Historical Fiction

Matthew Maxwell Scott, great-great-great-great grandson of Walter Scott, and Trustee of Abbotsford, said: “The very best historical fiction is moist reality– it additionally informs us how the past felt, and holds a mirror to the here and now. By acknowledging the best writing, the purpose of the reward is to influence even more individuals of every ages to find the joy and worth of historical fiction, to give both established and emerging authors a wider audience, and to combine authors, audiences and readers to celebrate and examine each various other. It is as a result completely appropriate that this shortlist news comes direct from Abbotsford, the home of terrific historic fiction.”

Shortlisted Books: A Diverse Canvas

Katie Give, chair of this year’s judges, said: “From the adventures of young combatants in the Peloponnesian battle in Sicily in the fifth century BC, to a tender story of family members isolated in your home in the excellent British wintertime freeze of 1962/3, the shortlisted books for this year’s Walter Scott Prize repaint a broad literary canvas of richness and nuance. They are a celebration of storytelling, including a tale of retribution and reconciliation in post-occupation Netherlands, a picture of household claustrophobia in Tudor England, an electrifying cross-country journey via bush West, and a revelatory exploration of evil– under a thick social camouflage– in 1950s New York. Together, guides highlight the starting concepts of the reward, bringing tales embeded in the past right into our own time, through fine creating that is instilled with ambition and originality to generate books guaranteed to live long in the memory.”