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The Short List

The Wales Book of the Year 2010 Short List has been announced in a special event on Sunday 6 June 2010, at The Guardian Hay Festival.

From a longlist which was notable for its diversity, the judges have chosen award-winning poet Philip Gross for his poems inspired by images of electricity pylons taken with a pin-hole camera; Anglo-Russian historian Nikolai Tolstoy for his re-examination of the origins of the tales of the Mabinogi and Terri Wiltshire for her debut novel about racism in America’s Deep South.

The Short List is:

I Spy Pinhole Eye, Philip Gross (Cinnamon)

The Compilation of the Four Branches of the Mabinogi, Nikolai Tolstoy (The Edwin Mellen Press)

Carry Me Home, Terri Wiltshire (Macmillan)

The English language judges are poet and lecturer at the University of Wales, Ian Gregson, fiction writer James Hawes and broadcaster Sara Edwards.

Ian Gregson said:

"This very diverse list contains a novel, a book of poems and a work of criticism: together they constitute an excitingly challenging set of texts which illustrates the powerfully innovative writing which is currently emerging in Wales."

Peter Finch, Academi Chief Executive commented:

"The annual Wales Book of the Year Award draws attention world-wide to the strength of our native creativity. For a small nation Wales consistently punches well above its literary weight. This year’s short-listed titles prove the point admirably."

The shortlist for the Welsh-language Award is Cymru: Y 100 lle i’w gweld cyn marw by John Davies; Banerog by Hywel Griffiths and Naw Mis by Caryl Lewis.

The English and Welsh-language winners will be announced on Wednesday 30 June 2010 at a gala dinner at The St David’s Hotel &Spa, Cardiff where each winner will receive a cheque for £10,000 and the four runners-up will each receive £1,000.

For further information, contact Academi: 029 2047 2266 / post@academi.org.