Caryl Lewis

Caryl Lewis

 Caryl Lewis

Caryl Lewis is an award-winning writer who has published eleven Welsh-language books for adults, three novels for young adults and thirteen children’s books.

She came to prominence as an author with Martha, Jac a Sianco (Y Lolfa, 2004), which won the Wales Book of the Year award in 2005. This is a novel that tells the tale of two brothers and a sister living in the countryside of Ceredigion. In 2007 Parthian published Gwen Davies's English translation of the novel, Martha, Jack and Shanco.

Y Gemydd (The Jeweller, Y Lolfa 2007) was shortlisted for the Wales Book of the Year award in 2008 as was her novel Naw Mis (Nine Months, Y Lolfa 2009) in 2010. An Englisht translation of Y Gemydd was published by Honno in 2019 as The Jeweller, translated by Gwen Davies, and is selected to our 2020–21 Bookcase.

Caryl Lewis won the Wales Book of the Year Award for the second time in 2016, with her tenth novel, Y Bwthyn (The Cottage, Y Lolfa, 2015). Her latest book, Y Gwreiddyn (The Root), was published by the Lolfa in 2016, and is shortlisted for Welsh Book of the Year Award 2017. This collection of short stories relates to nature, relationships, love and loss. Y Gwreiddyn was chosen for the 2017 Exchange Bookcase.

She has also written extensively for cinema and television. She wrote the script for a film based on her novel Martha, Jac a Sianco, which won the Atlantis Prize at the 2009 Moondance Festival in Colorado. Caryl’s television credits include adapting Welsh-language scripts for the acclaimed crime series 'Y Gwyll / Hinterland' which was produced back-to-back in Welsh and English, as well as a writer on the bilingual drama serial 'Craith / Hidden'. The series has been sold to international broadcasters in Denmark, Norway, Slovenia, Finland, Germany, Poland and the Netherlands.

In January 2019 she was one of the authors who took part in a two-city programme of literary debates, theatre, dance and film in Calicut and Mumbai, organised by Literature Across Frontiers and Wales Literature Exchange. Also in 2019 she was one of four European authors who toured South East Asia with Literature Across Frontiers to meet audiences and fellow authors from the region. They appeared at the Singapore Writers Festival, and took part in the Asia Pacific Writers and Translators (APWT) Conference programme in Macau.

Caryl took part in a discussion panel on 'A Different Window onto the World: Indigenous Language Literature, Identity and Translation in Scotland, Wales and Europe' in the 2019 London Book Fair. (see photos here)

Caryl Lewis was included in the literary magazine Words Without Borders' Welsh-language issue. You can read the titular story of her short story collection Y Gwreiddyn, "The Root", translated into English by George Jones, here.