Debatable Land is a Guardian Fiction Prize

Guardian First Book Award

Guardian First Book Award, issued before 1999 as Guardian Fiction Prize or Guardian Fiction Award, is awarded to new writing in fiction and non-fiction.-History:...

 winning novel by Scottish author Candia McWilliam

Candia McWilliam

Candia McWilliam is a Scottish author. Her father was the architectural writer and academic Colin McWilliam.Born in Edinburgh, McWilliam was educated at Girton College, Cambridge, where she obtained first class honours. Her first novel, A Case of Knives, published in 1988, was the winner of a...

. The novel seeks to raise questions about the direction in which Britain

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 (and more specifically the devolution project

Devolution in the United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom, devolution refers to the statutory granting of powers from the Parliament of the United Kingdom to the Scottish Parliament, the National Assembly for Wales and the Northern Ireland Assembly and to their associated executive bodies the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government...

) is moving in the 21st century. The title refers to the debatable lands

Debatable Lands

The Debatable Lands, also known as Debatable ground, batable ground or thriep lands, was land lying between Scotland and England, formerly in question to which it belonged, when they were distinct kingdoms...

, land lying between Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 and England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 when they were distinct kingdoms which perennially switched between English and Scots rule, before becoming an independent lawless territory ruled by warring clan

Clan

A clan is a group of people united by actual or perceived kinship and descent. Even if lineage details are unknown, clan members may be organized around a founding member or apical ancestor. The kinship-based bonds may be symbolical, whereby the clan shares a "stipulated" common ancestor that is a...

s. Set on a boat on the beautifully evoked South Pacific

Pacific Ocean

The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...

, the relations between the characters mirror contemporary devolution

Devolution

Devolution is the statutory granting of powers from the central government of a sovereign state to government at a subnational level, such as a regional, local, or state level. Devolution can be mainly financial, e.g. giving areas a budget which was formerly administered by central government...

ary debates between the constitutive British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

states, particularly the relationship between England and Scotland.