By Shiqian Xiong
Under the arrangement of the school, BIGC short term programme group was invited to attend the Saltire Society Awards held in Edinburgh, Scotland on November 30, which was a new experience for all of us. We also made adequate preparations for it. Led by Gill, a group of eleven arrived at the national museum of Scotland, where the event was began at 6:30 p.m on November 30.
The Saltire Prize are presented annually by the Saltire Society. It is the premiere prize for writing by Scots or about Scotland which is open to fiction, non-fiction and poetry.
Before the ceremony, many people were chatting and drinking champagne in the hall, most of them were writers and publishers. It is clear that the award is somewhat influencial in Scotland.
At about 7:30, everyone went upstairs to take seat and the ceremony began. On each person’s table was a booklet introducing the types of awards and the list of nominees. The awards recognized six literary categories (fiction, non-fiction, research, history, poetry and first books) and two publishing categories (best publisher and emerging publisher).
Presenters were invited to deliver a speech. Then announcements of the winners and the reasons for the award were given. Slightly different from the Chinese literature award categories, there are two special awards. The first is the “Ross Roy Medal”, an award given to scholars of Scottish literature for outstanding contributions to the study of Scottish literature. It is rare for a public award to be confered to a doctoral dissertation in China. The winners of each category received a bespoke award created by Inverness based-artist Simon Baker of Evergreen Studios and a cash remuneration （https://www.saltiresociety.org.uk/awards/literature/）.
After the award ceremony, the waiter brought some dessert and wine, Gill and everyone did some discussion on today’s literature prize, compared and analyzed the differences between China and Scotland, so that everyone had a deeper understanding of the literature awards.
This activity not only made the students understand the Saltire Society Awards’ authority and regional characteristics of Scotland prize for literature, but also provided knowledge of their awards set, evaluation standard and native writers writing, dynamic and direction. It is a valuable lesson for every one of us.