“Some novels can be admired, others enjoyed. But it is a rare thing to find a story so engrossing, bittersweet and beautiful that you do not so much read it, as experience it. […] Stuart is a masterful storyteller.” – Kiran Millwood Hargrave

Booker Prize winner Douglas Stuart returns to explore the bounds of heteronormative masculinity and the danger of loving someone too much. Infused with rich lyricism, Young Mungo is a page-turning tale of working-class life and the suspenseful story of first love between two young men. Stuart is a bold new voice in Scottish queer literature whose intimate and nuanced depictions of family life draw heavily on his own experiences as a teenager in Glagsow.

In Young Mungo, amidst the violent sectarianism of inner-city Glasgow, Protestant Mungo finds peace and solace in the dovecot of a Catholic neighbour, James. As the pair bond and begin to fall in love, they must struggle against the threat of discovery and the pressure to reject their true selves in the name of masculine norms.

Douglas Stuart will be in conversation with writer, editor, critic and broadcaster Sinéad Gleeson.

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Douglas Stuart is a Scottish-American author and fashion designer. His debut novel, Shuggie Bain, won the 2020 Booker Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Award.

Presented with support from Scottish Books International