Academi Wales Book of the Year 2008

Academi Wales Book of the Year 2008
Two Senior Lecturers at Aberystwyth University – Dr Damian Walford Davies from the Department of English, and Dr Huw Meirion Edwards from the Department of Welsh – are judging the prestigious Academi Wales Book of the Year 2008 competition, worth £10,000 each for the two eventual winners in Welsh and English.

Damian, along with fellow judges Mavis Nicholson, broadcaster and author, and Trevor Fishlock, journalist, writer and broadcaster, is judging the English-language prize, and Huw, together with broadcaster Siân Thomas and author, editor and translator (and former winner of the prize), Aled Islwyn, is judging the Welsh-language competition.The 2008 award is for titles published in 2007.

The judging process involves a year of committed reading. This year, there were close to 200 eligible books on the English side, and around 60 on the Welsh side. A Longlist of 10 books in both English and Welsh was announced, with adjudications, at events in Wrexham Library and at The Atrium, Cardiff, on 12 March 2008.

The Shortlist of 3 books in each language is announced at the Hay Festival and the two winners will be revealed at a ceremony at the Hilton Hotel in Cardiff on 1 July.

While their Book of the Year duties require them to exercise their critical judgement as readers, both Damian and Huw are creative writers in their own right. Damian has published a co-written volume of poetry, Whiteout (Parthian, 2006), and his collection, Suit of Lights, will appear from Seren early next year.

His poems have appeared in journals and anthologies including Poetry Wales, Modern Poetry in Translation, The Wolf, and the Carcanet Oxford Poets Anthology, 2007. He has also published poetry in Welsh. Huw won the Chair at the National Eisteddfod, Newport in 2004 for a poem in strict metre on the theme ‘Tir Neb' (No Man's Land). His poetry has appeared in a number of recent anthologies, and he is a member of The Cŵps poetry talwrn team and a significant presence on the contemporary Welsh poetry scene.

The Wales Book of the Year competition has established itself as a major event in Wales’s literary calendar, and has a respected international profile.

Long List
Rhoi Cymru’n Gyntaf: Syniadaeth Plaid Cymru (Putting Wales First: Plaid Cymru’s Philosophy) by Professor Richard Wyn Jones of the Department of International Politics is one of ten volumes to appear on the long list of the 2008 Wales Book of the Year. The volume is published by University of Wales Press.