Somerset Maugham Award

• Created and endowed in 1947 by Somerset Maugham to enable British authors under the age of 35 to enrich their writing by spending time abroad
• the Somerset Maugham Award may be best known for its being given to Kingsley Amis--who famously disliked foreign travel and used the money to write a book called I Like It Here--in 1955, for Lucky Jim, which Maugham had reviewed, pronouncing its author "scum."
• It is administered by the Society of Authors
• recently there have been several winners each year, each of whom receives £3500.
• The awards are not limited to fiction, though dramatic works are excluded from consideration.
• Zadie Smith was awarded in 2006 for On Beauty