vignette|Université d'Édimbourg, Old College. Le prix à la mémoire de James Tait Black est le plus ancien et l'un des plus importants prix littéraires britanniques. Il récompense chaque année depuis 1919 des auteurs écrivant en langue anglaise et se divise en deux catégories : la fiction et la biographie. Il dépend de l'université d'Édimbourg, en Écosse. Chacun des lauréats reçoit la somme de , la plus élevée pour un prix littéraire en Écosse.
Histoire Quatre lauréats du prix Nobel de littérature se sont vu décerner le prix James Tait Black au début de leur carrière : William Golding, Nadine Gordimer, J. M. Coetzee et Doris Lessing.
Parmi les lauréats du prix James Tait Black dans les deux catégories, on peut citer D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, John Buchan, Robert Graves, Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh, Aldous Huxley, Quentin Bell, Muriel Spark, Angela Carter, Lawrence Durrell, John le Carré, J. G. Ballard, Margaret Drabble, Salman Rushdie, Antonia Fraser (cinq ans après sa mère, Elizabeth Longford), Martin Amis ou Cormac McCarthy.
Enfin, une traduction-adaptation en langue anglaise a reçu le prix dans la catégorie fiction en 1942 : celle du Voyage en Occident (ou Le Singe pèlerin), grand classique de la littérature chinoise, par le sinologue Arthur Waley.
Sélection Les gagnants sont choisis par les professeurs de littérature anglaise de l'université, assistés de doctorants pour la phase de pré-sélection, et c'est cette structure qui donne au prix sa crédibilité. L'absence de sponsor et de figure médiatique au sein du jury est également un facteur de confiance.
Conditions d'éligibilité Seules les œuvres de fiction ou biographiques rédigées en anglais et publiées pour la première fois au Royaume-Uni dans les précédant la date de soumission sont éligibles. Les deux prix peuvent être attribués au même auteur, mais aucun prix ne peut être attribué deux fois.
Liste exhaustive des lauréats Année Fiction Année Biographie 1919 Hugh Walpole, The Secret City 1919 Henry Festing Jones, Samuel Butler, Author of Erewhon (1835-1902) - A Memoir 1920 D. H. Lawrence, The Lost Girl 1920 G. M. Trevelyan, Lord Grey of the Reform Bill 1921 Walter de la Mare, Memoirs of a Midget 1921 Lytton Strachey, Queen Victoria 1922 David Garnett, Lady into Fox 1922 Percy Lubbock, Earlham 1923 Arnold Bennett, Riceyman Steps 1923 Sir Ronald Ross, Memoirs, Etc. 1924 E. M. Forster, Route des Indes (A Passage to India) 1924 William Wilson, The House of Airlie 1925 Liam O'Flaherty, The Informer 1925 Geoffrey Scott, The Portrait of Zelide 1926 Radclyffe Hall, Adam's Breed 1926 H. B. Workman, John Wyclif: A Study of the English Medieval Church 1927 Francis Brett Young, Portrait of Clare 1927 H. A. L. Fisher, James Bryce, Viscount Bryce of Dechmont, O.M. 1928 Siegfried Sassoon, Memoirs of a Foxhunting Man 1928 John Buchan, Montrose 1929 J. B. Priestley, The Good Companions 1929 Lord David Cecil, The Stricken Deer: or The Life of Cowper 1930 E. H. Young, Miss Mole 1930 Francis Yeats-Brown, Lives of a Bengal Lancer 1931 Kate O'Brien, Without My Cloak 1931 J. Y. R. Greig, David Hume 1932 , Boomerang 1932 Stephen Gwynn, The Life of Mary Kingsley 1933 A. G. Macdonell, England, Their England 1933 Violet Clifton, The Book of Talbot 1934 Robert Graves, Moi, Claude, empereur () et Claudius the God 1934 J. E. Neale, Queen Elizabeth 1935 , The Root and the Flower 1935 Raymond Wilson Chambers, Thomas More 1936 Winifred Holtby, South Riding 1936 Edward Sackville-West, A Flame in Sunlight: The Life and Work of Thomas de Quincey 1937 Neil M. Gunn, Highland River 1937 Lord Eustace Percy, John Knox 1938 C. S. Forester, A Ship of the Line et Flying Colours 1938 Sir Edmund Chambers, Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1939 Aldous Huxley After Many a Summer 1939 David C. Douglas, English Scholars 1940 Charles Morgan, The Voyage 1940 Hilda F. M. Prescott, Spanish Tudor: Mary I of England 1941 Joyce Cary, A House of Children 1941 John Gore, King George V 1942 Arthur Waley, Traduction de Monkey de Wu Cheng'en 1942 Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, Henry Ponsonby: Queen Victoria's Private Secretary 1943 Mary Lavin, Tales from Bective Bridge 1943 G. G. Coulton, Fourscore Years 1944 Forrest Reid, Young Tom 1944 C. V. Wedgwood, William the Silent 1945 L. A. G. Strong, Travellers 1945 D. S. MacColl, Philip Wilson Steer 1946 Oliver Onions, Poor Man's Tapestry 1946 Richard Aldington, Wellington 1947 L. P. Hartley, Eustace and Hilda 1947 Charles E. Raven, English Naturalists from Neckham to Ray 1948 Graham Greene, The Heart of the Matter 1948 Percy A. Scholes, The Great Dr Burney 1949 Emma Smith, The Far Cry 1949 John Connell, W. E. Henley 1950 Robert Henriques, Through the Valley 1950 Cecil Woodham-Smith, Florence Nightingale 1951 Chapman Mortimer, Father Goose 1951 Noel Annan, Leslie Stephen 1952 Evelyn Waugh, Men at Arms 1952 G. M. Young, Stanley Baldwin 1953 Margaret Kennedy, Troy Chimneys 1953 Carola Oman, Sir John Moore 1954 C. P. Snow, The New Men et The Masters 1954 Keith Feiling, Warren Hastings 1955 Ivy Compton-Burnett, Mother and Son 1955 R. W. Ketton-Cremer, Thomas Gray 1956 Rose Macaulay, The Towers of Trebizond 1956 St John Greer Ervine, George Bernard Shaw 1957 Anthony Powell, At Lady Molly's 1957 Maurice Cranston, Life of John Locke 1958 Angus Wilson, The Middle Age of Mrs. Eliot 1958 Joyce Hemlow, The History of Fanny Burney 1959 Morris West, The Devil's Advocate 1959 , Edward Marsh 1960 Rex Warner, Imperial Caesar 1960 , The Life of Dean 1961 , The Ha-Ha 1961 M. K. Ashby, Joseph Ashby of Tysoe 1962 Ronald Hardy, Act of Destruction 1962 Meriol Trevor, Newman: The Pillar and the Cloud et Newman: Light in Winter 1963 Gerda Charles, A Slanting Light 1963 Georgina Battiscombe, John Keble: A Study in Limitations 1964 Frank Tuohy, The Ice Saints 1964 Elizabeth Longford, Victoria R.I. 1965 Muriel Spark, The Mandelbaum Gate 1965 Mary Caroline Moorman, William Wordsworth: The Later Years 1803-1850 1966 Christine Brooke-Rose, Such, et Aidan Higgins, Langrishe, Go Down 1966 Geoffrey Keynes, The Life of William Harvey 1967 Margaret Drabble, Jerusalem The Golden 1967 Winifred Gérin, Charlotte Brontë: The Evolution of Genius 1968 , The Gasteropod 1968 Gordon Haight, George Eliot 1969 Elizabeth Bowen, Eva Trout 1969 Antonia Fraser, Mary, Queen of Scots 1970 , The Bird of Paradise 1970 Jasper Ridley, Lord Palmerston 1971 Nadine Gordimer, A Guest of Honour 1971 Julia Namier, Lewis Namier 1972 John Berger, G 1972 Quentin Bell, Virginia Woolf 1973 Iris Murdoch, The Black Prince 1973 Robin Lane Fox, Alexander the Great 1974 Lawrence Durrell, Monsieur, or the Prince of Darkness 1974 John Wain, Samuel Johnson 1975 Brian Moore, The Great Victorian Collection 1975 Karl Miller, Cockburn's Millennium 1976 John Banville, Doctor Copernicus 1976 Ronald Hingley, A New Life of Chekhov 1977 John le Carré, Comme un collégien 1977 George Painter, Chateaubriand: Volume 1 - The Longed-For Tempests 1978 Maurice Gee, Plumb 1978 Robert Gittings, The Older Hardy 1979 William Golding, Darkness Visible 1979 Brian Finney, Christopher Isherwood: A Critical Biography 1980 J. M. Coetzee, Waiting for the Barbarians 1980 Robert B. Martin, Alfred Tennyson: The Unquiet Heart 1981 Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children, et Paul Theroux, The Mosquito Coast 1981 Victoria Glendinning, Edith Sitwell: Unicorn Among Lions 1982 Bruce Chatwin, On The Black Hill 1982 Richard Ellmann, James Joyce 1983 Jonathan Keates, Allegro Postillions 1983 Alan Walker, Franz Liszt: The Virtuoso Years 1984 J. G. Ballard, Empire du soleil (Empire of the Sun), et Angela Carter, Nights at the Circus 1984 Lyndall Gordon, Virginia Woolf: A Writer's Life 1985 Robert Edric, Winter Garden 1985 David Nokes, Jonathan Swift: A Hypocrite Reversed 1986 Jenny Joseph, Persephone 1986 Dame Felicitas Corrigan, Helen Waddell 1987 George Mackay Brown, The Golden Bird: Two Orkney Stories 1987 Ruth Dudley Edwards, Victor Gollancz: A Biography 1988 Piers Paul Read, A Season in the West 1988 Brian McGuinness, Wittgenstein, A Life: Young Ludwig (1889-1921) 1989 James Kelman, A Disaffection 1989 Ian Gibson, Federico García Lorca: A Life 1990 William Boyd, Brazzaville Beach 1990 Claire Tomalin, The Invisible Woman: The Story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens 1991 Iain Sinclair, Downriver 1991 Adrian Desmond et James Moore, Darwin 1992 Rose Tremain, Sacred Country 1992 Charles Nicholl, The Reckoning: The Murder of Christopher Marlowe 1993 Caryl Phillips, Crossing the River 1993 Richard Holmes, Dr Johnson and Mr Savage 1994 Alan Hollinghurst, The Folding Star 1994 Doris Lessing, Under My Skin 1995 Christopher Priest, The Prestige 1995 Gitta Sereny, Albert Speer: His Battle with the Truth 1996 Graham Swift, Last Orders, et Alice Thompson, Justine 1996 Diarmaid MacCulloch, Thomas Cranmer: A Life 1997 Andrew Miller, Ingenious Pain 1997 R. F. Foster, W. B. Yeats: A Life, Volume 1 - The Apprentice Mage 1965-1914 1998 Beryl Bainbridge, Master Georgie 1998 Peter Ackroyd, The Life of Thomas More 1999 Timothy Mo, Renegade, or Halo2 1999 Kathryn Hughes, George Eliot: The Last Victorian 2000 Zadie Smith, White Teeth 2000 Martin Amis, Experience 2001 Sid Smith, Something Like a House 2001 Robert Skidelsky, John Maynard Keynes: Volume 3 - Fighting for Britain 1937-1946 2002 Jonathan Franzen, The Corrections 2002 Jenny Uglow, The Lunar Men: The Friends Who Made the Future 1730-1810 2003 Andrew O'Hagan, Personality 2003 Janet Browne, Charles Darwin: Volume 2 - The Power of Place 2004 David Peace, GB84 2004 Jonathan Bate, John Clare: A Biography 2005 Ian McEwan, Saturday 2005 Sue Prideaux, Edvard Munch: Behind the Scream 2006 Cormac McCarthy, The Road 2006 Byron Rogers, The Man Who Went into the West: The Life of R.S. Thomas 2007 Rosalind Belben, Our Horses in Egypt 2007 Rosemary Hill, God's Architect: Pugin and the Building of Romantic Britain 2008 Sebastian Barry, The Secret Scripture 2008 Michael Holroyd, A Strange Eventful History 2009 A. S. Byatt, The Children's Book 2009 John Carey, William Golding: The Man Who Wrote Lord of the Flies (William Golding) 2010 Tatjana Soli, The Lotus Eaters 2010 Hilary Spurling, Burying the Bones: Pearl Buck in China (Pearl Buck) 2011 Padgett Powell, You and Me 2011 Fiona MacCarthy, The Last Pre-Raphaelite: Edward Burne-Jones and the Victorian Imagination (Edward Burne-Jones) 2012 Alan Warner, The Deadman's Pedal 2012 Tanya Harrod, The Last Sane Man : Michael Cardew, Modern Pots, Colonialism and the Counterculture 2013 Jim Crace, Harvest 2013 Hermione Lee, Penelope Fitzgerald : A Life 2014 Zia Haider Rahman, In the Light of What We Know 2014 Richard Benson, The Valley: A Hundred Years in the Life of a Family 2015 Benjamin Markovits, You Don't Have to Live Like This 2015 James Shapiro, 1606, Shakespeare and the Year of Lear 2016 Eimear McBride, The Lesser Bohemians 2016 Laura Cumming, The Vanishing Man 2017 Eley Williams, Attrib. and other stories 2017 Craig Brown, Ma'am Darling: 99 Glimpses of Princess Margaret 2018 Olivia Laing, Crudo 2018 Lindsey Hilsum, In Extremis: The Life and Death of the War Correspondent Marie Colvin 2019 Lucy Ellmann, Ducks, Newburyport 2019 George Szirtes, The Photographer at Sixteen 2020 Shola von Reinhold, Lote 2020 Doireann Ni Ghriofa, A Ghost in the Throat 2021 Keith Ridgway, A Shock 2021 Amit Chaudhuri, Finding the Raga: An Improvisation on Indian Music 2022 Barbara Kingsolver, On m'appelle Demon Copperhead (Demon Copperhead) 2022 Darryl Pinckney, Come Back in September2023 Alexis Wright, Praiseworthy 2023 Iman Mersal, Traces of EnayatIan Penman, Fassbinder: Thousands of Mirror2024 Lucas Rijneveld, My Heavenly Favourite 2024 Lamia Ziadé, My Great Arab Melancholy
Notes et références
Voir aussi Articles connexes Prix Hawthornden Prix Samuel Johnson
Liens externes James Tait Black Prizes homepage, University of Edinburgh Windows Media video report of the 2007 James Tait Black Prize ceremony