Book on Scots and slavery wins top literature prize

A book about Scottish involvement in slavery has won the top prize at Scotland's national book awards.

David Alston has received the Saltire Society Scottish Book of the Year for his Slaves and Highlanders:  Silenced Histories of Scotland and the Caribbean.

The Cromarty-based historian's book explores the role of Highland Scots in the exploitation of enslaved Africans and their descendants in cotton, sugar and coffee plantations of the 18th and 19th centuries.

The awards were held at Edinburgh's Traverse Theatre on Thursday night.

Novelist and playwright Alexander McCall Smith was presented with the 2022 Saltire Society Lifetime Achievement Award for his contribution to Scottish literature.