After years of trying not to become a writer, Alys Conran picked up a pen and produced her first and awardwinning novel, which follows a childhood friendship tested by extreme experiences. Starting tomorrow, the book will be serialised in the Western Mail

in Edinburgh, later went on to do a MA in creative writing at Manchester, where she worked on Pigeon.

She now lives with her husband Joe in Bethesda, with mountains to the back of the house and the Penrhyn quarry across the valley.

She said: “It’s a book that’s very difficult to categorise.

“Some people say it’s a strange kind of love story.

“Others say it’s a murder mystery of sorts.

“Others that it’s a coming of age story.

“For me, it’s the story of a powerful friendship between a boy called Pijin and his best friend Iola and how that friendship struggles for survival through some extremely hard experiences as they grow up.

“It’s also, crucially, a story about the importance of language, the words we use, and the stories – both truth and lies – that we tell ourselves.”

Despite readers describing the novel as a page turner, Alys admitted that the writing process was difficult.

She said: “I stopped and started a lot, had to cut huge chunks, often gave up for long periods.

“It took years, partly because of the demands of jobs etc, which you always have to balance as a writer, but I got there in the end.”

A Welsh language adaptation of Pigeon, by Sian Northey, was published at the same time as the English version.

Alys said: “The original English book uses a lot of Welsh, so that when people speak, you don’t forget that they’re actually speaking in Welsh.

“That was very important. And, without giving too much away, it’s also very much a book about what it means to speak a minority language, and about the interesting dynamic between Welsh and English in our lives here, so having it translated into Welsh was quite a natural step.

“The Welsh version also moves between Welsh and English a fair