Alexander McCall Smith wins Major Award

Fatty O’Leary’s Dinner Party by Alexander McCall Smith
wins the 2015 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction

On 19 May 2015, Everyman’s Library and Champagne Bollinger announced Alexander McCall Smith as the winner of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for his superbly irreverent Fatty O’Leary’s Dinner Party (Polygon).
This is the first time McCall Smith, the bestselling author of No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series and the 44 Scotland Street, has appeared on the comic fiction prize shortlist. This win sees him beating off competition from Caitlin Moran and Irvine Welsh amongst others. He joins an impressive list of previous winners including Edward St Aubyn, Howard Jacobson, Marina Lewycka and the late Sir Terry Pratchett.
Fatty O’Leary’s Dinner Party follows larger than life American Cornelius P. “Fatty” O’Leary and his doting wife as they embark on the trip of a lifetime to Ireland from the States. Almost immediately, things go terribly wrong for the hapless couple: the plane seats in economy class are far too small, Irish bathroom furniture proves not as commodious as they’d have liked and all the time Fatty must put up with the unthinking cruelty of strangers.
Packed with McCall Smith’s trademark wit, Fatty O’Leary’s Dinner Party is a hilarious and touching portrayal of a kindly and misunderstood soul. Scotland on Sunday has praised the book as an ‘all you can eat platter of humour…once again McCall Smith doles out an appropriately extra-large helping of fun’.
Alexander McCall Smith comments,
‘I am greatly honoured to be awarded the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize. I very much enjoyed writing that book and if there are those who are enjoying reading it, then I am content. I am also content with the jeroboam of champagne, the 52 Wodehouse novels, and the pig that go with this award. That is what I would call a very well-balanced prize.’
James Naughtie, one of the judges, comments,
‘It’s right and proper to couple the names of Alexander McCall Smith and P.G.Wodehouse. No writer in recent times has been a more prolific dispenser of wit. He makes people laugh out loud and, like everyone who understands the absurdities of life, he understands sadness too.’
Following in the footsteps of previous winners, Alexander McCall Smith will be presented with a locally-bred Gloucestershire Old Spot pig – which will be named after his winning novel – at the Hay Festival on Tuesday 26 May. This is a fitting prize for a man who was once part-owner of a small pig farm on the west coast of Scotland.
Fatty O’Leary’s Dinner Party will join a long line of curiously named pigs, including Lost for Words, Snuff, A Short History of Tractors in Ukraine, and All Fun and Games until Somebody Loses an Eye. McCall Smith will also be presented with a jeroboam of Champagne Bollinger Special Cuvee, a case of Bollinger La Grande Année and the complete Everyman Wodehouse Collection, which as of this year stands at 99 titles.

On Tuesday 26 at the Hay Festival, Alexander entertained the media as he met his pig in an orchard just outside the Festival and was presented with Bollinger champagne.

The judges for the 2015 prize are Everyman’s Library publisher, David Campbell; Director of the Hay Festival, Peter Florence; and broadcaster and author, James Naughtie.