‘Unique voice’ scoops top prize
HOUSTON-BASED writer Bryan Washington has been announced as the winner of the Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize.
The annual prize this year celebrates its 15th anniversary, with a prize sum of £30,000.
Bryan, 27, won with his debut short story collection, LOT (Atlantic Books).
The winner was chosen by a bumper judging panel chaired by Swansea University Professor Dai Smith.
He said of LOT: “Bryan Washington’s collection of short stories, LOT, does what all great fiction does, finds a style that can open up a world that is otherwise unknowable and he does it with wit and grace.
“It is a real voice, unique, unforgettable, generous, and warm and one which provides us with a sense of community and the full experience of life.
“As one of the judges said, he has a kickass voice.”
Bryan began writing LOT in 2016 with an ambition to chart the city of Houston’s geography, focusing on the interior lives of his marginalised fellow citizens.
The collection has been lauded as gut-wrenching, bruising, profound and shattering, offering a deep-dive exploration into the people thriving and dying across Houston’s neighbourhoods.
From a young woman’s affair detonating across an apartment complex to the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, LOT presents a formidable yet tender collection of interlinked tales.
The Dylan Thomas Prize is awarded for the best published literary work in the English language, written by an author aged 39 or under.
The five other titles shortlisted for the 2020 Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize were:
Surge by Jay Bernard (Chatto & Windus)
Flèche by Mary Jean Chan (Faber & Faber)
Inland by Téa Obreht (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
If All the World and Love were Young by Stephen Sexton (Penguin Random House)
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong (Jonathan Cape, Vintage).