Clear by Carys Davies is Wales Book of the Year 2025
The winner was announced during an award ceremony held at Sherman Theatre, Cardiff, which was also live-streamed for audiences at home by Buffoon Media on the ambobdim.cymru site. You can watch the stream here.
Carys receives a prize of £4,000 for her novel, as well as the iconic trophy designed and created by Angharad Pearce Jones. The overall English-language award is sponsored by Cardiff University’s School of English, Communication and Philosophy. She first took to the stage to collect the Fiction Award, supported by The Rhys Davies Trust, before returning to claim the overall award and the prestigious title Wales Book of the Year 2025.
The winner of the Welsh-language overall prize, sponsored by Cardiff University’s School of Welsh, is Camu by Iola Ynyr (Y Lolfa).
Click here to find out more about Wales Book of the Year
Clear is a short novel set on a remote Scottish island in 1843. Ivar, the sole occupant, leads a life of quiet isolation until the day he finds a man unconscious on the beach below the cliffs. The newcomer is John Ferguson, an impoverished church minister sent to evict Ivar and turn the island into grazing land for sheep. Unaware of the stranger’s intentions, Ivar takes him into his home, and despite the two men having no common language, a fragile bond begins to form between them. Meanwhile on the mainland, John’s wife Mary anxiously awaits news of his mission.
On behalf of the judging panel, Carole Burns said: “We all loved this book, for its story, for its ambition, for its sentences, for its relevance to our world today. It is an intricately crafted, passionate and remarkable novel. Excellence is always the only criteria, in the end, for a prize, and that’s true for this winning book. Congratulations to Carys Davies, author of this year’s winning book, Clear.”
Clear is Carys Davies’ third novel, all published by Granta. Her previous two are The Mission House (2020) and West (2018), which won the Wales Book of the Year Fiction award, was Runner-Up for the Society of Authors’ McKitterick Prize and was shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize. Her short stories have been widely published in magazines and anthologies and broadcast on BBC Radio 4, and have won the Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize, the Society of Authors’ Olive Cook Award, the Royal Society of Literature’s V S Pritchett Prize, and a Northern Writers’ Award. Davies’ second collection, The Redemption of Galen Pike, was shortlisted for Wales Book of the Year and won the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award 2015.
Camu is Iola Ynyr’s autobiography, written as a series of personal essays in which she aims to reclaim her life and memories through creativity, having lost periods of both due to alcoholism, trauma and mental illness. Iola’s book is an attempt to let go of fear and trust that she is safe.
Each year, the Wales Book of the Year Award celebrates talented Welsh writers. There are four categories in English and Welsh – Poetry, Fiction, Creative Non-Fiction and Children and Young People. Each category winner takes home a prize of £1,000. One category winner in each language goes on to win the Overall Award, earning a further £3,000 and claiming the title, Wales Book of the Year.
The English-language winners of Wales Book of the Year 2025 are:
Wales Book of the Year 2025 – Sponsored by Cardiff University’s School of English, Communication and Philosophy
& Fiction Award – Supported by the Rhys Davies Trust
Clear, Carys Davies (Granta)
Poetry Award
Girls etc, Rhian Elizabeth (Broken Sleep Books)
Creative Non-Fiction Award – Sponsored by Hadio
Nightshade Mother: A Disentangling, Gwyneth Lewis (Calon Books)
Children & Young People Award
A History of My Weird, Chloe Heuch (Firefly Press)
Nation.cymru People’s Choice Award
Girls etc, Rhian Elizabeth (Broken Sleep Books)
Welsh-language Winners:
Llyfr y Flwyddyn 2025 – Sponsored by Cardiff University School of Welsh
& Creative Non-Fiction Award
Camu, Iola Ynyr (Y Lolfa)
Poetry Award
Rhuo ei distawrwydd hi, Meleri Davies (Cyhoeddiadau’r Stamp)
Fiction Award – Sponsored by HSJ Accountants
V + Fo, Gwenno Gwilym (Gwasg y Bwthyn)
Children and Young People Award – Supported by Cronfa Elw Park-Jones
Arwana Swtan a’r Sgodyn Od, Angie Roberts and Dyfan Roberts (Gwasg y Bwthyn)
Golwg360 Barn y Bobl Prize (Welsh-language People’s Choice)
V + Fo, Gwenno Gwilym (Gwasg y Bwthyn)
Want to find out more? Browse the following links.
Who are the Wales Book of the Year 2025 Judges?
Which titles have previously won the Wales Book of the Year award?