Carys Davies

Last updated
Carys Davies
Born
Llangollen, North Wales
OccupationNovelist
Notable workThe Redemption of Galen Pike (2014), West (2018), The Mission House (2020), Clear (2024)
Website https://www.carysdavies.net/

Carys Davies is a British novelist and short story writer. She has won the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, the Wales Book of the Year Fiction Award, the Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize, the Royal Society of Literature V.S. Pritchett Short Story Prize, and the Society of Authors Olive Cook Short Story award. She has been shortlisted for The Writers' Prize and Scotland's National Book Awards and was runner-up for the McKitterick Prize.

Contents

Life and education

Davies was born in Llangollen, North Wales, and grew up in Newport, South Wales, and in the Midlands, England. [1] [2]

Davies studied modern languages at St Anne's College, Oxford, and worked as a freelance journalist in New York and Chicago before moving to Lancaster, Lancashire. [2] [3] She currently lives in Edinburgh, Scotland. [2]

Career

Davies published her debut, a collection of short stories, Some New Ambush, in 2007. [4] It was shortlisted for the Roland Mathias Prize [5] [6] and was a runner up for the Calvino Prize. [7]

Her second collection, The Redemption of Galen Pike (2014), won the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award [8] and the Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize. [9] [10] The title story won the Royal Society of Literature V.S. Pritchett Short Story Prize in 2011. [11] [12] [13] Another story from the collection, 'The Quiet', won the Society of Authors Olive Cook Short Story award in 2010. [14] [15] A third story from the collection, 'In the Cabin in the Woods', was shortlisted for the Manchester Fiction Prize in 2013. [16]

Davies published her first novel, West, in 2018. [17] [18] The story of a settler searching for dinosaur bones west of the Mississipi and of his daughter left at home in Pennsylvania, it was shortlisted for The Writers' Prize (then called the Rathbones Folio Prize) [19] and runner-up for the McKitterick Prize. [20] [21] It won the Wales Book of the Year Fiction Award. [22] [23] [24]

Davies's second novel, The Mission House, was published in 2020. [25] [26] Set in a south Indian mission house, it tells the story of a middle-aged librarian searching for a fresh start. It was selected for the Wales Literature Exchange bookshelf for 2020-2021 [27] and was a Sunday Times Novel of the Year for 2020. [2] [28] [29]

Davies published her third novel, Clear, in 2024. [30] [31] [32] It tells the story of a minister sent to a remote Scottish island to evict its last inhabitant. It won the Bookmark Festival Book of the Year [33] [34] and was shortlisted for Scotland's National Book Awards Scottish Fiction Book of the Year [35] [36] [37] and the Historical Writers' Association Gold Crown Award. [38] In 2025, the novel was longlisted for the Highland Book Prize. [39] [40]

Davies has also won a Northern Writers’ Award for fiction [41] [42] and a Cullman Fellowship at the New York Public Library. [43] [27] She is a member of the Folio Academy [27] and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. [44] [45]

Bibliography

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References

  1. ↑ "Carys Davies on south Wales: 'The valleys, the coast, gave me an abiding sense of where I come from'". The Guardian. Retrieved 16 January 2025.
  2. 1 2 3 4 "Carys Davies". Simon & Schuster. Retrieved 16 January 2025.
  3. ↑ "Novel short story writer Carys Davies triumphs". Irish Examiner. Retrieved 16 January 2025.
  4. ↑ "Paperbacks: The Friendship: Wordsworth and Coleridge; Hello I Must Be Going; The First Emperor; Book of Longing; Some New Ambush; Dylan on Dylan; The Sinner". The Independent. Retrieved 17 January 2025.
  5. ↑ "Aberystwyth academic short-listed for top literary award". Prifysgol Aberystwyth. Retrieved 16 January 2025.
  6. ↑ "All-women shortlist for top literary award". BBC. Retrieved 16 January 2025.
  7. ↑ "2008 Calvino Prize". University of Louisville. Retrieved 16 January 2025.
  8. ↑ "Frank O'Connor award won by 'truly original' stories of Carys Davies". The Guardian. Retrieved 16 January 2025.
  9. ↑ "City author wins fiction prize". Lancaster Guardian. Retrieved 16 January 2025.
  10. ↑ "Awards: Jerwood Fiction Uncovered". Shelf Awareness . 2015-06-19. Archived from the original on 27 October 2023. Retrieved 2025-01-16.
  11. ↑ "The Redemption of Galen Pike". Prospect Magazine. Retrieved 16 January 2025.
  12. ↑ "The V.S. Pritchett Memorial Prize: Stories that Live On". Thresholds. Retrieved 16 January 2025.
  13. ↑ "V.S. Pritchett Short Story Prize". Royal Society of Literature. Retrieved 16 January 2025.
  14. ↑ "SoA ready to defend PLR from government cuts". The Bookseller. Retrieved 16 January 2025.
  15. ↑ "ALCS Tom-Gallon Trust Award". Society of Authors. Retrieved 16 January 2025.
  16. ↑ "Manchester Writing Competition 2013". Manchester Metropolitan University. Retrieved 16 January 2025.
  17. ↑ "West by Carys Davies review – stunning debut novel from a short-story writer". The Guardian. Retrieved 17 January 2025.
  18. ↑ "A Quixotic Hunt for Mammoth Creatures That Ends in Tragedy". The New York Times. Retrieved 17 January 2025.
  19. ↑ "Rathbones Folio Prize Shortlist: Eight Works in Fiction and Nonfiction". Publishing Perspectives. Retrieved 16 January 2025.
  20. ↑ "£100,000 'night of riches' – announcing the 2019 Society of Authors' Awards winners". Society of Authors. Retrieved 16 January 2025.
  21. ↑ "2019 Authors' Awards Winners Announced". Authors' Licensing and Collecting Society. Retrieved 16 January 2025.
  22. ↑ "Ailbhe Darcy wins the 2019 Wales Book of the Year Award". Literature Wales. Retrieved 16 January 2025.
  23. ↑ "Carys Davies wins Aberystwyth University Fiction Award". Granta. Retrieved 16 January 2025.
  24. ↑ "West by Carys Davies: Book Club Interview". Wales Arts Review. Retrieved 16 January 2025.
  25. ↑ "The Mission House by Carys Davies review — she's triumphed again". The Times. Retrieved 17 January 2025.
  26. ↑ "Rumbles of unrest". TLS. Retrieved 17 January 2025.
  27. 1 2 3 "Carys Davies". Wales Literature Exchange. Retrieved 16 January 2025.
  28. ↑ "Best fiction books of the year 2020". Sunday Times. Retrieved 16 January 2025.
  29. ↑ "The magic of dialogue". National Centre for Writing. Retrieved 16 January 2025.
  30. ↑ "Clear by Carys Davies review – in search of a shared language". The Guardian. Retrieved 16 January 2025.
  31. ↑ "The human factor: A minister is sent to a remote Shetland isle to evict its sole tenant". The TLS. Retrieved 17 January 2025.
  32. ↑ "'Clear' should finally give Carys Davies the attention she deserves". The Washington Post. Retrieved 17 January 2025.
  33. ↑ "Bookmark Book of the Year 2024". Bookmark Book Festival. Retrieved 16 January 2025.
  34. ↑ "Hundreds enjoy successful latest chapter of Perthshire's Bookmark festival". Daily Record. Retrieved 16 January 2025.
  35. ↑ "The Saltire Society Literary Awards 2024 Shortlist". Saltire Society. Retrieved 16 January 2025.
  36. ↑ "Scotland's female writers dominate the Shortlist in this year's Scotland's National Book Awards". Creative Scotland. Retrieved 16 January 2025.
  37. ↑ "Women dominate fiction shortlist for Scotland's National Book Awards". The Independent. Retrieved 16 January 2025.
  38. ↑ "The 2024 HWA Crown Awards shortlists". Historia Magazine. Retrieved 16 January 2025.
  39. ↑ "Highland Book Prize 2024 Longlist Announced". The Highland Book Prize. Retrieved 29 January 2025.
  40. ↑ "Highland Book Prize 2024 Longlist Announced". Publishing Scotland. 28 January 2025. Retrieved 29 January 2025.
  41. ↑ "Northern Writers Awards Winners 2013". New Writing North. Retrieved 16 January 2025.
  42. ↑ "Sheffield authors triumph at Northern Writers' Awards". The Bookseller. Retrieved 16 January 2025.
  43. ↑ "The New York Public Library's Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers Announces 2016-2017 Fellows". New York Public Library. Retrieved 16 January 2025.
  44. ↑ "Adjoa Andoh, Russell T Davies and Michaela Coel elected to Royal Society of Literature". The Guardian. Retrieved 16 January 2025.
  45. ↑ "2022 Fellows, Honorary Fellows and Benson Medal". Royal Society of Literature. Retrieved 16 January 2025.
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