Carys Davies’s prize-winning novel, CLEAR, that won the Wales Book of the Year 2025 award, centres around Ivar, a Scottish man in the 1840s who stubbornly stays alone on his island home when it is cleared. When he rescues the impoverished minister who literally falls into his life – a man he does not know was sent to evict him – they forge a fragile friendship despite not sharing a language. In our current climate, a time fraught with growing political and economic divisions, this is a novel worthy of our attention.

At this event, Davies will talk to author and Southampton associate professor Carole Burns – and you will have a chance to ask questions yourself – in this special festival Writers in Conversation event.

CLEAR is the winner of the Royal Society of Literature Michael Ondaatje Prize and the 2025 Wales Book of the Year Award. Davies, the author of two other novels and two story collections, has also won awards for those books including the Frank O’Connor International Story Award.

Carole Burns, prize-winning author of the novel THE SAME COUNTRY, teaches Creative Writing as an associate professor of English at the University of Southampton, where she also directs the Writers in Conversation reading series.