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Nadifa Mohamed has won the Wales Book of the Year Award 2022 with her novel The Fortune Men (Viking) after picking up a hat-trick of prizes at the annual event.
The prize celebrates outstanding literary talent from Wales across many genres published in both English and Welsh, across six categories. To be eligible, books need to be written by a Welsh or Wales-based writer, or must have strong Welsh-themed content.
The novel was awarded the Rhys Davies Trust Fiction Award, then the Wales Arts Review People’s Choice Award, before going on to win the overall award and the crowning title of Wales Book of the Year 2022. Mohamed receives a total prize of £4,000 for all three awards and a bespoke trophy, designed and created by the artist Angharad Pearce Jones.
The Fortune Men is Mohamed’s third novel, and was shortlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize. It is a fictionalised retelling of the story of Mahmood Mattan, a man wrongfully convicted of murder in 1950s Cardiff.
Mohamed was born in Hargeisa, Somaliland, in 1981 and moved to Britain at the age of four. Her first novel, Black Mamba Boy (HarperCollins) won the Betty Trask Prize, was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award, the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, the Dylan Thomas Prize, and the PEN Open Book Award. Her second novel, Orchard of Lost Souls (Scribner UK), won a Somerset Maugham Award and the Prix Albert Bernard. She was selected for the Granta Best of Young British Novelists in 2013 and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
The awards are judged by an independent panel appointed annually. Judging the English-language books this year were poet and writer Krystal Lowe, journalist and broadcaster Andy Welch, author and presenter Matt Brown, and poet Taylor Edmonds.
“We want to thank every single writer who submitted their book to this award," Lowe said. "It was not only a joy but an honour to read every one of them. It was incredible to see the breadth of talent and creativity living in Wales, and I look forward to following the long and fruitful careers of all the writers who submitted. We are so pleased to have selected Nadifa Mohamad’s The Fortune Men and hope that many people read this compelling novel.”
Jeremy Dixon won the Bangor University Poetry Award for his second poetry collection, A Voice Coming from Then (Arachne Press). The collection explores the poet’s teenage suicide attempt and expands to encompass themes of bullying, acceptance and support.
The winner of the Creative Non-Fiction Award is The Journey is Home: Notes from a Life on the Edge by John Sam Jones (Parthian), a memoir about journeys and realisation.
Taking home the Children and Young People Award is The Shark Caller by Zillah Bethell (Usborne). Set on the shores of Papua New Guinea, this novel is an adventure tale of friendship, forgiveness, and bravery.
The news of this year’s winners was announced during a broadcast of BBC Radio Wales’ Arts Show, where presenter Nicola Heywood Thomas was joined by the judges, and Leusa Llewelyn from Literature Wales and Gary Raymond from Wales Arts Review, in a programme featuring contributions by all 12 shortlisted writers.
Llewelyn, Literature Wales’ joint interim c.e.o., said: “Many congratulations to all of the category winners, everyone at Literature Wales have been enjoying and discussing the shortlisted books for months. A special congratulations to Nadifa for winning the hat-trick with The Fortune Men. It’s no surprise at all that she has captured the judges’ and the readers’ hearts with this powerful novel about injustice and oppression. The Fortune Men brings alive the multicultural docklands of our capital city in the 1950s with its sights, smells and sounds, with Cardiff becoming an intriguing character in its own right within the pages of this captivating novel.”