Cynan Jones shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award 2017

Cynan Jones shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award 2017

21 September 2017

Cynan Jones1

Author Cynan Jones has been shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award 2017.

The award was established in 2005 to raise the profile of the short form. The winning author will receive £15,000, and four further shortlisted authors, £600 each.

This year's judges include bestselling novelist and Chair of Judges, Joanna Trollope; Baileys Prize winner Eimear McBride; Booker Prize longlisted writer Jon McGregor; Encore Award winner Sunjeev Sahota; and returning judge Di Speirs, Books Editor at BBC Radio, and judge of the Award since its launch.

In the lyrical, tension-fuelled fishing trip gone wrong of Cynan Jones's ‘The Edge of the Shoal, the desire to survive and the realisation of loss is paramount. Cynan Jones is the author of five novels, The Long Dry, Everything I Found on the Beach, The Dig, Bird, Blood, Snow and Cove. His work is widely translated, and short stories have appeared on BBC Radio 4 and in a number of anthologies and publications including Granta Magazine and The New Yorker.

Selected from over 600 entries, this year’s shortlisted stories are:

  • ‘Murmur’ by Will Eaves;
  • ‘The Waken’ by Jenni Fagan;
  • ‘The Edge of the Shoal’ by Cynan Jones;
  • ‘The Collector’ by Benjamin Markovits
  • ‘If a book is locked there’s probably a good reason for that, don’t you think?’ by Helen Oyeyemi

The stories were broadcasted on BBC Radio 4, and Cynan Jones’s story can be heard here.

The announcement of the BBC National Short Story Award 2017 will be broadcast live from the Award ceremony on BBC Radio 4’s ‘Front Row’ from 7.15pm on Tuesday 3 October.