Drift: Winner of the Wales Book of the Year

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I quite like then having projects where I’m working in a team, I find it balances me out a little socially, because obviously I live somewhere extremely remote as well, so it is nice sometimes to have that contact. On Thursday 13 July, during a live ceremony at the Tramshed in Cardiff, Literature Wales announced that Drift by Caryl Lewis (Doubleday – an imprint of Transworld, Penguin Random House) has been named Wales Book of the Year 2023, whilst Pridd by Llŷr Titus (Gwasg y Bwthyn) is the Wales Book of the Year 2023 in Welsh. It’s an example of how information technology, counter-intuitively, can take us further away from deep knowledge and understanding. A tender, unusual and gorgeously wrought love story t hat weaves the magic of folk lore, the wonder of the sea, and the depths of human cruelty.

A truly beautiful and haunting novel, and an incredible feat of storytelling' DONAL RYAN, author of FROM A LOW AND QUIET SEA 'A tender, unusual and gorgeously wrought love story' RACHEL JOYCE, author of THE UNLIKELY PILGRIMAGE OF HAROLD FRY'In times of war, Lewis finds resilience, redemption and hope. The holiday homes are a comment on how difficult it is to sustain a living culture when you have homes that are empty half the year, and the cultural erasure that comes with changing the names of places and properties. I felt it was more of a young adult novel and I wasn't quite convinced by the Syrian aspect of the story - perhaps as a campaigner for Syria I am more likely to be critical than other readers. And I think the book encourages us to look at the specific and the microcosm, rather than pulling back and making sweeping statements, which is what our politics is about at the moment.When a series of unfortunate events sees Hamza tossed into a stormy sea, it is Nefyn who saves him and nurses him slowly back to health. Indeed the sea is her true element and she seems somewhat stranded on land, where she lives in a clifftop cottage that has seen better days and needs a new roof. Lewis is a visiting lecturer in Creative Writing at Cardiff University, and lives with her family on a farm near Aberystwyth. Tylwyth Teg means ‘the fair people’, and they’re actually incredibly dark and brutal, they’re not nice fairies at all, and the mermaids here tend to have quite a dark edge to them as well, which personally I find more engaging, somehow, than the pretty girls on rocks.

There’s quite a claustrophobic feel to the novel in many ways, and as you said, with the cottage almost falling into the sea, it’s a sense of cultures on the edge, pushed up to the edge, and you’ll find Welsh-speaking communities quite often pushed up against the side of the sea. Literature Wales’ executive director Claire Furlong said: “Huge congratulations to Caryl, Llŷr and to all the Wales Book of the Year 2023 winners.Moving between the wild Welsh coast and war-torn Syria, Drift is a love story with a difference, and a hypnotic tale of lost identity, the quest for home and the wondrous resilience of the human spirit.