There is the occasional clang of something culturally familiar (a scene where Nefyn tells a prison guard to walk into the sea feels a little akin to Jedi mind tricks). A violent storm will bring these two lost souls together - but other forces will soon try to tear them apart. uk, ‘In October 2020, the Home Office published data showing that over 50% of the UK’s religious hate crimes had been targeted towards Muslims in the preceding year. The perspectives it takes cover not only Nefyn, Hamza, Joseph, Efa and Emrys – but also military personal who shuffle paper, forge records and neglect their wives. I look at my children and their friends and they have five languages between them, but Welsh is the one they share every day, they live their lives through Welsh.

And it’s that slipping away that hurts the most when this emotional hand-grenade of a book deftly pulls out the pin, as briny waters claim their own and a lone man sets sail. We’re in lambing season at the moment, and you will see crows circling lambs and taking their eyes and tongues, and that is as much a part of nature as the spring flowers and all the beauty that happens at this time of year. There’s such a trope about chance encounters between cultures sparking friction, when in fact a lot of these things spark a common love of literature and language. I was so invested in the characters worlds, and the balance that Lewis captures of being cloistered by a small village existence, while also freed by a world at the mercy of the coast.Yet, it is the steady heartbeat pacing of this novel – its dark, enclosing atmosphere which helps to soften the edges of such moments. So the Welsh version and the English version will be published on the same day, one with Macmillan and one with a small Welsh publisher, so the children who have read my work before can have the choice of Welsh or English. Moving between the wild Welsh coast and war-torn Syria, Drift is a love story with a difference, a hypnotic tale of lost identity, the quest for home and the wondrous resilience of the human spirit. Derceto (also known as Atargatis or Siriadea), from Oedipus Aegyptiacus by Athanasius Kircher, 1652.

The significance of this becomes even more profound when contemplating the environmental crisis the world is experiencing currently. When you login first time using a Social Login button, we collect your account public profile information shared by Social Login provider, based on your privacy settings. I think so, and unfortunately it seems even more relevant than when I wrote it, with what’s happening in Ukraine. For Hamza wants to leave Wales, desperately needs to find his family, especially his son, not knowing whether he is alive or dead. The film adaptation – with a screenplay by Caryl – went on to win six Welsh BAFTAS and the Spirit of the Festival Award at the 2010 Celtic Media Festival.Literature Wales’ executive director Claire Furlong said: “Huge congratulations to Caryl, Llŷr and to all the Wales Book of the Year 2023 winners. Drift – Caryl Lewis’s first novel written in English – is a story submerged in mystery, alluding to a world beyond what is deemed rational, with the sea at the heart of it all. So what we have in this tale is a modern myth cast with a timely urgency, and a clever inversion of the sadly familiar story of a refugee wanting to arrive in a new country. So, when it comes to the sea, regarding even part of it as ‘military waters’ comes across as a gorgeously sardonic moment from the author when one considers the powerful and overarching presence of the ocean throughout Drift.

Lewis finely weaves her imaginings, expertly paced, until their intensity churns like a collapsing wave. Winners also received a Wales Book of the Year trophy, designed by artist and blacksmith Angharad Pearce Jones. But there are so many stories along the Welsh coast, there’s the Tylwyth Teg as well, which would be the equivalent of fairies. Their relationship is a coming together of perspectives, of cultures: “She tried to secure the tone of his eyes in her mind, he tried to etch the angles of her body into his, and together they made a map.

To see how the myths of the selkies and the legend of the goddess Atargatis are wed to a love against the world and a firm need to fulfil your destiny. However, it is more likely that it is the pills and Nefyn’s dual affinity to land and sea that leave people with that impression. Wales Arts Review’s People’s Choice Award winner received a ceramic piece by Cardiff-based artist Lisa Marie Tann from her Ogmore Series, and the Golwg360 Barn y Bobl Award winner received a piece of art by Mary Bath, a final year Illustration student from the University of Wales Trinity Saint David.