Just under a week to go to the most important poll of a generation… that’s right, it’s Wales Book of the Year 2024.
I’ve been looking g through the winners since the modern iteration of the awards was established in 1992, and what a rich shelving of literature it would make. Poetry, fiction, and non-fiction. Books you may have forgotten about, writers that you might not have picked up in an age.
In the spirit of fun and competition that awards are supposed to encourage, here’s a new angle.
I’d like you to pronounce it “Wobbity of Wobbity”. That’s the only way it’ll catch on, if we all get on the same page from the off. And what does it mean? Well, reminded recently of, when in 1994, the Booker Prize ran a Booker of Bookers’ - a vote for the best book to have won the Booker Prize (to mark the award’s 25th anniversary). It was won by Salman Rushdie for his 1981 winner, Midnight’s Children.
This is hardly an organised event, with a black tie dinner to announce the winner. Rather it is an open forum. Have a look at all the winners, and have your say as to what you think is the WOBBITY of WOBBITYs.
2023 Caryl Lewis, Drift, (Fiction, Penguin)
2022 Nadifa Mohamed, The Fortune Men, (Fiction, Viking)
2021 Catrin Kean, Salt, (Fiction, Gomer)
2020 Niall Griffiths, Broken Ghost, (Fiction, Jonathan Cape)
2019 Ailbhe Darcy, Insistence, (Poetry, Bloodaxe Books)
2018 Robert Minhinnick, Diary of the Last Man, (Poetry, Seren)
2017 Alys Conran, Pigeon, (Fiction, Parthian)
2016 Thomas Morris, We Don't Know What We're Doing, (Fiction, Faber)
2015 Patrick McGuinness, Other People's Countries, (Non-fiction, Jonathan Cape)
2014 Owen Sheers, Pink Mist, (Poetry, Faber)
2013 Rhian Edwards, Clueless Dogs, (Poetry, Seren)
2012 Patrick McGuinness, The Last Hundred Days, (Fiction, Seren)
2011 John Harrison, Cloud Road, (Non-fiction, Parthian)
2010 Philip Gross, I Spy Pinhole Eye, (Poetry, Cinnamon)
2009 Deborah Kay Davies, Grace, Tamar and Laszlo the Beautiful, (Fiction, Parthian)
2008 Dannie Abse, The Presence, (Non-fiction, Hutchinson)
2007 Lloyd Jones, Mr Cassini, (Fiction, Seren)
2006 Robert Minhinnick, To Babel and Back, (Fiction, Seren)
2005 Owen Sheers, The Dust Diaries, (Non-fiction, Faber)
2004 Niall Griffiths, Stump, (Fiction, Jonathan Cape)
2003 Charlotte Williams, Sugar and Slate, (Non-fiction, Planet)
2002 Stevie Davies, The Element of Water, (Fiction, The Women's Press)
2001 Stephen Knight, Mr Schnitzel, (Fiction, Viking)
2000 Sheenagh Pugh, Stonelight, (Poetry, Seren)
1999 Emyr Humphreys, The Gift of a Daughter, (Fiction, Seren)
1998 Mike Jenkins, Wanting to Belong, (Fiction, Seren)
1997 Siân James, Not Singing Exactly, (Fiction, Honno)
1996 Nigel Jenkins, Gwalia in Khasia, (Non-fiction, Gomer)
1995 Duncan Bush, Masks, (Poetry, Seren)
1994 Paul Ferris, Caitlin: The Life of Caitlin Thomas, (Non-fiction, Hutchinson)
1993 Robert Minhinnick, Watching the Fire Eater, (Non-fiction, Seren)
1992 Emyr Humphreys, Bonds of Attachment, (Fiction, Macdonald/Sphere)
Have you read any — or all — of these books? Which stands out?
Gary Raymond is a novelist, author, playwright, critic, and broadcaster. In 2012, he co-founded Wales Arts Review, was its editor for ten years. His latest book, Abandon All Hope: A Personal Journey Through the History of Welsh Literature is out now with Calon Books.