Poet leads field in literary awards

THE winners of the 2020 Wales Book of the Year awards have been announced, writes Aamir Mohammed.

Wales Book of the Year celebrates the best Welsh works in the fields of creative writing and literary criticism in both Welsh and English.

Caryl Bryn, the Caernarfonbased poet, won the Welsh-language poetry category with her first collection, Hwn ydy’r llais, tybad? (Cyhoeddiadau’r Stamp), while biographer Alan Llwyd won the Welsh-language creative non-fiction category with Byd Gwynn, Cofiant T. Gwynn Jones (Cyhoeddiadau Barddas) about one of Wales’ most famous writers and poets.

The Welsh-language children and young people award was won by Elidir Jones for Yr Horwth (Atebol Cyf) – the first title in the Bangor-born author and scriptwriter’s fantasy series for teenagers, while Ceredigion-based journalism lecturer Ifan Morgan Jones scooped the Welsh-language fiction category for Babel (Y Lolfa), which is described as a “fast-paced mystery”.

Babel also won overall winner in the Welsh-language section. Writer Niall Griffiths was overall winner of the English- language section with his ninth novel – Broken Ghost (Jonathan Cape) which features “a Welsh community drawn together and blown apart by a strange vision in the mountains”. It is his second such win after taking the title with Stump in 2004.

For English-language writing, Zoe Skoulding won the poetry award with Footnotes to Water (Seren); Mike Parker was awarded the creative non-fiction award for On the Red Hill (William Heinemann).