Yesterday the Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize longlist was announced. There is an impressive and diverse list of contenders from across the globe, reflecting the diversity of the UK.
They are choosing to celebrate voices from around the world that reflect voices from the margins and not just from the mainstream. From Sri Lanka to Trinidad, Texas, and Ireland via the Middle East, this year’s longlist features a powerful, international collection of writers who are offering platforms for under-represented voices.
Through themes of identity, conflict and love, the 2022 longlist comprises eight novels, two poetry collections and two short story collections:
· A Passage North – Anuk Arudpragasam (Granta)
Anuk Arudpragasam was born in Colombo and currently lives between Sri Lanka and India. His debut novel, The Story of a Brief Marriage, won the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature, and was shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize as well as the Internationaler Literaturpreis. His second novel, A Passage North, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2021. He received a doctorate in philosophy from Columbia University in 2019. Follow him on Twitter @sirukavi
· What Noise Against the Cane – Desiree Bailey (Yale University Press)
Desiree Bailey is the author of What Noise Against the Cane (Yale University Press, 2021), which won the 2020 Yale Series of Younger Poets Prize and was a finalist for the 2021 National Book Award for Poetry. She is also the author of the fiction chapbook In Dirt or Saltwater (O’clock Press, 2016) and has short stories and poems published in Best American Poetry, Best New Poets, American Short Fiction, Callaloo, the Academy of American Poets and elsewhere. Desiree is from Trinidad and Tobago, and Queens, New York. She currently lives in Providence, RI. Follow her on Twitter @DesireeCBailey
· Keeping the House – Tice Cin (And Other Stories)
Tice Cin is an interdisciplinary artist from north London. A London Writers Award-winner, her work has appeared in numerous magazines, including Extra Teeth and Skin Deep, and has been commissioned by organisations such as the Battersea Arts Centre and St Paul’s Cathedral. An alumnus of the Barbican Young Poets programme, she now creates digital art as part of Design Yourself – a collective based at the Barbican Centre – exploring what it means to be human at a time of great technological change. A producer and DJ, she has released an EP, Keeping the House, to accompany her debut novel. Follow her on Twitter @ticecin
· Auguries of a Minor God – Nidhi Zak/Aria Eipe (Faber)
Nidhi Zak/Aria Eipe is a poet, pacifist and fabulist. Born in India, she grew up across the Middle East, Europe and North America before calling Ireland home. Founder of the Play It Forward Fellowships, she serves as poetry editor at Skein Press and Fallow Media, contributing editor for the Stinging Fly and an advisory board member of Ledbury Poetry Critics Ireland. She is the recipient of a Next Generation Artist Award in Literature from the Arts Council of Ireland and the inaugural Ireland Chair of Poetry Student Award. Follow her on Twitter @AriaEipe
· The Sweetness of Water – Nathan Harris (Tinder Press/Headline)
Nathan Harris is a Michener fellow at the University of Texas. He was awarded the Kidd prize, as judged by Anthony Doerr, and was also a finalist for the Tennessee Williams fiction prize. THE SWEETNESS OF WATER is his debut novel. He lives in Austin, Texas. Follow @TinderPress for more information.
· No One is Talking About This – Patricia Lockwood (Bloomsbury Circus)
Patricia Lockwood is the author of four books, including the 2021 novel No One Is Talking About This, an international bestseller which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Women’s Prize for Fiction, and translated into 20 languages. Her 2017 memoir Priestdaddy won the Thurber Prize for American Humor and was named one of the Guardian‘s 100 best books of the 21st century. She also has two poetry collections, Motherland Fatherland Homelandsexuals (2014) and Balloon Pop Outlaw Black (2012). Lockwood’s work has appeared in the New York Times, the New Yorker, and the London Review of Books, where she is a contributing editor. She lives in Savannah, Georgia. Follow her on Twitter @TriciaLockwood
· Milk Blood Heat – Dantiel W. Moniz (Atlantic Books)
Dantiel W. Moniz is the recipient of the Alice Hoffman Prize for Fiction, the Cecelia Joyce Johnson Emerging Writer Award by the Key West Literary Seminars, and a Tin House Scholarship. Her fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in the Paris Review, Tin House, Ploughshares, American Short Fiction, Yale Review, One Story, McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern and elsewhere. Milk Blood Heat is her first book. She lives in Northeast Florida. Follow her on Twitter @dantielwmoniz
· Hot Stew – Fiona Mozley (John Murray Press)
Fiona Mozley grew up in York and lives in Edinburgh. Her first novel, Elmet, won a Somerset Maugham Award and the Polari Prize. It was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize, and longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, the Dublin Literary Award and the International Dylan Thomas Prize. In 2018 Fiona Mozley was shortlisted for the Sunday Times/PFD Young Writer of the Year Award. Follow her @fjmoz
· Open Water – Caleb Azumah Nelson (Viking, Penguin General)
Caleb Azumah Nelson is a 27-year-old British-Ghanaian writer and photographer living in South East London. His photography has been shortlisted for the Palm Photo Prize and won the People’s Choice prize. His short story, PRAY, was shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award 2020. His first novel, OPEN WATER, won the Costa First Novel Award and the Bad Form Book of the Year Award, was shortlisted for Waterstones Book of the Year, and longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize, the Gordon Burn Prize and the Desmond Elliott Prize. He was selected as a National Book Foundation ‘5 under 35’ honoree by Brit Bennett in 2021. Follow him on Twitter @CalebANelson
· Acts of Desperation – Megan Nolan (Jonathan Cape)
Megan Nolan lives in London and was born in 1990 in Waterford, Ireland. Her essays, fiction and reviews have been published in The New York Times, The White Review, The Sunday Times, The Village Voice, The Guardian and in the literary anthology, Winter Papers. She writes a fortnightly column for the New Statesman. This is her first novel.
· Peaces – Helen Oyeyemi (Faber)
Helen Oyeyemi is the author of The Icarus Girl, The Opposite House, White is for Witching (which won the Somerset Maugham Award), Mr Fox, Boy, Snow, Bird, Gingerbread and the short story collection What is Not Yours is Not Yours. In 2013, Helen was included in Granta‘s Best of Young British Novelists.
· Filthy Animals – Brandon Taylor (Daunt Books Publishing)
Brandon Taylor is the author of the acclaimed novel Real Life, shortlisted for the Booker Prize, longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, and named a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice and the Foyles Fiction Book of the Year. He is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where he was an Iowa Arts Fellow in fiction. Follow him on Twitter @blgtylr
Key Dates for the Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize 2022
– Longlist Announcement – 3rd February
– Shortlist Announcement – 31st March
– British Library Event with shortlisted authors, London – 11th May
– Winner Announcement and award ceremony, Swansea – 12th May
Launched in 2006, the annual Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize is one of the most prestigious awards for young writers, aimed at encouraging raw creative talent worldwide. It celebrates and nurtures international literary excellence. Worth £20,000, it is one of the UK’s most prestigious literary prizes as well as one of the world’s largest literary prizes for young writers. Awarded for the best published literary work in the English language, written by an author aged 39 or under, the Prize celebrates the international world of fiction in all its forms including poetry, novels, short stories and drama. The prize is named after the Swansea-born writer, Dylan Thomas, and celebrates his 39 years of creativity and productivity. One of the most influential, internationally-renowned writers of the mid-twentieth century, the prize invokes his memory to support the writers of today and nurture the talents of tomorrow.
ABOUT THE JUDGES
Namita Gokhale is a writer and festival director. She is the author of twenty works of fiction and non-fiction. Her acclaimed debut novel, Paro: Dreams of Passion, was published in 1984. Her latest novel The Blind Matriarch examines the Indian joint family against the backdrop of the pandemic. Jaipur Journals, published in January 2020, is set in the vibrant Jaipur Literature Festival, of which Gokhale is one of the co-founder-directors.
Her work spans various genres, including novels, short stories, Himalayan studies, mythology, several anthologies, books for young readers, and a recent play. Gokhale is the recipient of various prizes and awards, including the prestigious Sahitya Akademi (National Academy of Literature) Award 2021 for her novel Things to Leave Behind.
Follow her on Twitter @NamitaGokhale_
Rachel Trezise is a novelist and playwright from the Rhondda Valley. Her debut novel In and Out of the Goldfish Bowl won a place on the Orange Futures List in 2002. In 2006 her first short fiction collection Fresh Apples won the Dylan Thomas Prize. Her second short fiction collection Cosmic Latte won the Edge Hill Prize Readers Award in 2014. Her most recent play ‘Cotton Fingers’ toured Ireland and Wales and won the Summerhall Lustrum Award at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2019. Her most recent novel Easy Meat came out in 2021.
Alan Bilton is the author of three novels, The End of The Yellow House (Watermark 2020), The Known and Unknown Sea (Cillian, 2014), and The Sleepwalkers’ Ball (Alcemi, 2009), described by one critic as ‘Franz Kafka meets Mary Poppins’. He is also the author of a collection of surrealist short stories, Anywhere Out of the World. (Cillian, 2016) as well as books on silent film comedy, contemporary fiction, and the 1920s. He was a Hay Festival Writer at Work in 2016 and 2017 and teaches creative writing, literature and film at Swansea University.@ABiltonAuthor
Irenosen Okojie is a Nigerian British author whose bold, experimental works create vivid narratives that play with form and language. Her debut novel Butterfly Fish and short story collections Speak Gigantular and Nudibranch have won and been shortlisted for multiple awards. Her work has been optioned for the screen. A fellow and Vice Chair of the Royal Society of Literature, Irenosen is the winner of the 2020 AKO Caine Prize for her story, Grace Jones. She was awarded an MBE For Services to Literature in 2021.
Luke Kennard is a poet and novelist whose sixth collection of poetry, Notes on the Sonnets, won the Forward Prize for Best Collection 2021. His fifth, Cain, was shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize in 2017. His novels, The Transition and The Answer To Everything are available from 4th Estate. He lectures at the University of Birmingham.
Open Water again! Can’t escape from it!
Ha ha ha!