Kevin Jared Hosein Wins 2024 Walter Scott Prize

Caribbean writer Kevin Jared Hosein has won the 2024 Walter Scott Prize for his historical novel ‘Hungry Ghosts’. The novel tells the story of marginalized Hindu communities in Trinidad during the 1940s. The announcement was made at the Borders Book Festival in Melrose.

Judges praised the Hosein’s novel as a “richly imaginative, urgent and compelling” work. Hosein received the £25,000 first prize from Mathew Maxwell Scott, a direct descendant of Sir Walter Scott.

The author, who resides in Trinidad and Tobago, expressed his pride in representing his country and fulfilling the dreams of his ancestors who crossed the seas from India almost two centuries ago.

The Walter Scott Prize is one of the UK’s biggest literary awards with previous winners including Sebastian Barry, Robert Harris, Andrea Levy and Hilary Mantel.

Founded in 2009, the prize is open to novels published in the previous year in the UK, Ireland or the Commonwealth, and set at least 60 years ago.