Summer is in the air which means it’s time for Wales Book of the Year People’s Choice Award 2023. The national prize celebrates the best literary works in Wales with awards for both Welsh and English Language titles across four categories. Wales Arts Review is delighted to be sponsoring and hosting the People’s Choice Award once again – where you, the public, get to have your say. Keep reading to see the 2023 shortlist and then cast your vote below.
This year there are twelve awards in total with a collective prize fund of £14,000. In both Welsh and English there are four category winners, one People’s Choice winner and one overall winner. The four categories are: Fiction, Creative Non-Fiction, Poetry and Children & Young People. Within both languages, one prize is awarded for each of the four categories, one as the People’s Choice and one as the overall winner. The overall winner will be selected from the category winners and will claim the title Wales Book of the Year 2023.
Now, it’s time for you to have your say by casting your vote in the Wales Book of the Year People’s Choice Award 2023. Submit your vote below for your choice of overall best book across the four categories – voting closes at midnight on 23rd June!
See the full list of the titles shortlisted for Wales Book of the Year 2023 below.
When the War Came Home by Lesley Parr (Bloomsbury Children’s Books)
The Last Firefox by Lee Newbery (Penguin Random House Children’s Books)
The Mab by Matt Brown and Eloise Williams (Unbound)
Original Sins by Matt Rowland-Hill (Chatto & Windus)
And: A Memoir of My Mother by Isabel Adonis (Black Bee Books)
The Sound of Being Human: How Music Shapes Our Lives by Jude Rogers (Weidenfeld and Nicolson)
Drift by Caryl Lewis (Doubleday)
Fannie by Rebecca F. John (Honno Ltd.)
This Is Not Who We Are by Sophie Buchaillard (Seren – Poetry Wales Press Ltd.)
As If To Sing by Paul Henry (Seren – Poetry Wales Press Ltd.)
The Language of Bees by Rae Howells (Parthian Books)
A Marginal Sea by Zoe Skoulding (Carcanet Press)
What happens next?
All four category winners – including the People’s Choice Award and Overall English-language Wales Book of the Year Winner 2023 – will be announced at a special ceremony on 13th July. Make sure to get your votes in before voting closes on 23rd June!
Wales Book of the Year has been run by Literature Wales since 2004, during which time some of Wales’ most renowned writers have been celebrated alongside brilliant new talents.
Nadifa Mohamed was the Overall Winner of Wales Book of the Year 2022 in the English-language, with her novel The Fortune Men (Viking, Penguin Random House). The overall Welsh-language winner was Ffion Dafis with her novel Mori (Y Lolfa).
Find out more about past winners and the shortlisted books over the years: Wales Book of the Year Archive.
