Wales Book of the Year Winners 2026

The Storm’s Flora, Laura Wainwright (Seren Books)

Laura Wainwright’s debut collection is a powerful exploration of resilience in the face of ecological and human crises. Here, new life emerges from darkness and turmoil, and flourishes despite it. These poems offer awe-inspiring observations of the natural world rooted in the language, landscapes and histories of Wales. Told with musicality and an artist’s eye for detail, The Storm’s Flora celebrates the earth’s vivid beauty with flair and ingenuity.

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Laura Wainwright was born in Cardiff and grew up in Newport, Gwent, where she still lives. She attended school in Newport, and Cardiff University where she attained a BA, MA and PhD in English Literature. Her PhD thesis focused on Anglophone Welsh literature and was later published as New Territories in Modernism: Anglophone Welsh Writing, 1930-1949 by the University of Wales Press. Laura has also published poetry pamphlets, Air and Armour (Green Bottle Press, 2021) – the outcome of a Literature Wales Writer’s Bursary – and Coedcernyw: among other things (Clutag Press, 2023). Thrall: Poems and Art, a collaboration with Robert Minhinnick featuring Laura’s poetry and artwork, was published in February 2025 by Seventh Quarry Press.

Children of Radium: A Buried Inheritance, Joe Dunthorne (Hamish Hamilton)

Joe Dunthorne had always wanted to write about his great-grandfather, Siegfried: an eccentric scientist who invented radioactive toothpaste and a Jewish refugee from the Nazis who returned to Germany under cover of the Berlin Olympics to pull off a heist on his own home.

The only problem was that Siegfried had already written the book of his life – an unpublished, two-thousand page memoir so dry and rambling that none of his living descendants had managed to read it. And, as it turned out when Joe finally read the manuscript himself, it told a very different story from the one he thought he knew.

Thus begins a mystery which stretches across the twentieth century and around the world, from Berlin to Ankara, New York, Glasgow and eventually London – a mystery about the production of something much more sinister than toothpaste. On the trail of one ‘jolly grandpa’ with a patchy psychiatric history and an encyclopaedic knowledge of poison gases, Joe Dunthorne is forced to confront the uncomfortable questions that lie at the heart of every family. Can we ever understand where we come from? Is every family in the end a work of fiction? And even if the truth can be found –will we be able to live with it?

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Joe Dunthorne was born and brought up in Swansea. He is the author of three novels and one collection of poetry, including Submarine (Hamish Hamilton, 2008), which has been translated into fifteen languages and made into an acclaimed film directed by  Richard Ayoade, and Wild Abandon, which won the 2012 Encore Award. Children of Radium: A Buried Inheritance  is his first work of non-fiction. He lives in London.

My Dog, Olivia Wakeford (Harper Collins Children’s Books/ Harper Fire)

Ten-year-old Rhys really loves dogs. When he finds a lost black Labrador with big conker eyes and ears like soft velvet, he can’t quite believe his luck. Nobody comes forward to claim Worthington, giving Rhys the perfect opportunity to prove he’s a good owner. But when Rhys moves to London to live with his estranged dad who hates dogs, Rhys decides to keep Worthington secret.

Struggling to connect with his dad in a new city, Rhys takes comfort in Worthington. But he soon discovers that looking after a secret dog is anything but easy, and he knows that before long he’ll have to confront his fears and find a way to tell Dad…

Phenomenally moving and beautifully written, My Dog shows us that accepting the present doesn’t mean forgetting the past – in a story that will live with you for ever.

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Olivia Wakeford writes a lot about grief, which really means she writes about love. And dogs: she believes every story should have a dog in it! Olivia has worked in film and television, been a scriptwriter, dog-walker, PA and more, but her favourite job is writing novels for children. Olivia graduated with distinction from the MA in Writing for Children at Bath Spa University, she can ride a unicycle (badly) and is addicted to salt and vinegar crisps. She was born in Wales and now lives in London with her husband and their socially awkward Labrador, Obi. My Dog is her debut novel.

There She Goes, My Beautiful World,

Gosia Buzzanca (Calon Books)

What does ‘home’ mean? Is it where you come from, or is it somewhere that you have to create for yourself, building brick by brick on the ruins and treasures of everything that has gone before? In this compelling memoir, Gosia Buzzanca tells the story of a young woman who leaves Poland at the age of eighteen in search of a bigger life, hoping to leave the traumas of her teenage years behind her. After studying in England, she finds a rich new tapestry of experience awaiting her in Wales, with intertwined threads of love and literature, hope and despair. Motherhood brings new joys, but the pain of the past must be faced before this new life by the seaside can truly feel like home. With the fearless honesty of a poet, Gosia offers her account of an extraordinary ordinary life where every flavour is tasted, every moment lived to its fullest. This story of a lifelong quest for home will call to anyone who has ever felt lost or incomplete, and who yearns to find a place where they belong.

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Gosia Buzzanca was born in Poznań, Poland. She began publishing short stories in 2002, before moving to the UK in  2008. She earned a Creative Writing MA with distinction and was a recipient of the W&A Working-Class Writers’ Prize  in 2022. There She Goes, My Beautiful World is her first book. She now lives, works and writes in Barry, Wales.

Tri, Sonia Edwards (Gwasg y Bwthyn)

Tri is the latest novel in the popular cosy crime series featuring the private detectives Kiely and O’Shea. As they try to solve the mystery centring around three suspicious deaths within three days they also try and navigate their own on-off relationship.

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Sonia Edwards is one of Wales’ most experienced and prolific writers. Her collection of short stories Gloynnod (Gwasg Gwynedd,1995) was named Wales Book of the Year in 1996 and she was awarded the Prose Medal in the 1999 and 2017 National Eisteddfod.

Y Cyfan a Fu Rhyngom Ni – Ar Lwybrau ‘Atgof’ Prosser Rhys, Iestyn Tyne (Gwasg y Bwthyn)

Just over a century since Prosser Rhys won the National Eisteddfod Crown, Iestyn Tyne revisits his controversial poem. Along the way he considers the state of LGBTQ+ writing in Wales, prejudice and censorship, as well as roots, upbringing, habitat, migration, illness and what it’s like to be a young Welshman with something urgent to say.

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Iestyn Tyne was brought up in Llŷn but now lives with his family in Arfon. He has published numerous collections of poetry and a novel for young adults, Robyn (2021), part of the award-winning series, Y Pump. He co-edited Welsh (Plural): Essays on the Future of Wales (Repeater Books, 2022) with Darren Chetty, Grug Muse and Hanna Issa. He is one of the founders and editors of the independent publisher Y Stamp and a recipient of the Future Wales Fellowship 2023-25. In 2024 he was appointed as the first Caernarfon Town Poet.

Y Cae Ras, Manon Steffan Ros (Y Lolfa)

A novel about family, love and the sheer joy of being a football fan. Dan’s life is complicated. His parents are strict, and the tension between them and his big sister, Esther, is growing every day. The only thing that has been bringing the family together is going to watch the football at the Racecourse in Wrexham, but supporting a losing team isn’t a good way to raise spirits.

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Manon Steffan Ros is a full-time playwright and writer. She has written over twenty books, and won the Tir na n-Og Award four times (Trwy’r Tonnau in 2010; Prism in 2021, Pluen in 2017 and Fi a Joe Allen in 2019). She won the Prose Medal at the National Eisteddfod in 2018 with her popular novel Llyfr Glas Nebo which has now sold thousands of copies and has been translated into several languages. She is originally from Rhiwlas, Dyffryn Ogwen but now lives in Rhostryfan.

Trochi, Carwyn Eckley (Gwasg Carreg Gwalch)

The debut volume of poetry by the Chaired Bard at the 2024 National Eisteddfod in Pontypridd. Writing in strict metre and vers libre, his talents light up this anthology.

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Carwyn Eckley is 30 years old and comes from Penygroes, Dyffryn Nantlle. He lives in Cardiff with his partner Siân and their dog, Bleddyn, and works as a journalist with ITV Cymru’s Welsh Department, which produces Y Byd ar Bedwar and Y Byd yn ei Le. His interest in literature was ignited when his mother gave him a copy of a Harry Potter book as a very young boy, before becoming interested in Welsh poetry under the guidance of Ms Eleri Owen at Ysgol Dyffryn Nantlle. He studied Professional Welsh at Aberystwyth University and learned the craft of cynganeddu in lessons with Eurig Salisbury. He won the Intercollegiate Chair during his third year there, before winning the Urdd Chair in 2020-21. He is a member of the Talwrn y Beirdd Dros yr Aber team from Caernarfon with Rhys Iorwerth, Iwan Rhys and Marged Tudur, who have won the BBC Radio Cymru series five times.