BENBECULA longlisted for the 2026 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction
We’re excited to share that Benbecula by Graeme Macrae Burnet is one of the twelve books longlisted for the 2026 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction! The announcement was made today, February 5, and you can view the full longlist on their website here.
Grab a copy of Benbecula here.
The Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction is one of the most prestigious literary prizes in the world. Now in its sixteenth year, the Prize is unique for rewarding writing of exceptional quality in books first published in the UK, Ireland, or the Commonwealth, and set at least 60 years in the past.
The Prize was founded in 2009, and is traditionally awarded at the Borders Book Festival in Melrose, Scotland, in June every year. The winner receives £25,000 and shortlisted authors each receive £1,500. The Prize is managed by The Abbotsford Trust, the independent Scottish Charity responsible for Sir Walter Scott’s extraordinary Borders home, and is supported by Hawthornden Foundation and the Buccleuch Living Heritage Trust.
Booker-nominated Graeme Macrae Burnet returns to the historic Scotland of His Bloody Project to tell the multi-layered story of madness and murder in the MacPhee family.
During the summer of 1857 on the distant Scottish island of Benbecula, Angus MacPhee, returning from a fortnight’s work at a house a few miles away, seems to have lost his mind, forcing his family to keep him shackled to his bed. When he is finally allowed to go at large, his erratic behaviour leads to the conviction that he should be committed to an asylum.
Five years later, Malcolm MacPhee is living alone in the house where his brother’s madness led to horrifying ends. Isolated, ostracised by his small community, Malcolm is haunted, the stench of his brother’s crimes lingering as the reek cleaves to the thatch. Is he afflicted by the same madness? And to where has his sister Marion disappeared?
Drawing on letters, asylum records, and witness statements, Graeme Macrae Burnet returns to the historic Scotland of His Bloody Project to construct a beguilingly layered narrative about madness, murder, and the uncertain nature of the self.
Graeme Macrae Burnet is the author of six novels: the Booker-shortlisted His Bloody Project, which has been published in over twenty languages; the Booker-longlisted Case Study (named as one of the New York Times’ 100 Notable Books of 2022); Benbecula; and the Georges Gorski trilogy, comprising The Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau, The Accident on the A35, and A Case of Matricide. Graeme was born in Kilmarnock and now lives in Glasgow.
