Author Thomas Morris is celebrating further recognition and success with a hat-trick of awards, after his debut book We Don’t Know What We’re Doing was announced as Wales Book of the Year 2016.
At the Literature Wales award ceremony held in The Redhouse, Merthyr Tydfil, on Thursday 21 July, the Caerphilly-born author scooped up a trio of prizes, including the main English-language award for Wales Book of the Year 2016.
The award was presented by the Chair of the Arts Council of Wales, Phil George, which included a £4,000 prize, and a specially commissioned trophy, designed and created by the artist Angharad Pearce Jones.
Morris also won the Rhys Davies Trust Fiction Award and the Wales Arts Review People’s Choice Award, as voted for by members of public, having won the Somerset Maugham Award last month.
He said: “It’s such a lovely honour, and it’s doubly lovely to be chosen for the Reader’s Choice Award.
“Winning the Wales Book of the Year is a great boost for my book, and a great shot of confidence for me and my writing. Growing up, I very rarely saw South Wales represented in fiction, on TV, or in the movies, so I really wanted to change that.
“I think it’s important to put Caerphilly onto the page and show that the lives we live here – or anywhere in Wales for that matter – are worthy of being documented.
“In my book, characters buy pasties from Glanmors, go on dates at the Big Cheese Festival, and have picnics down by the castle. So it feels especially wonderful that these stories – and our town – now have the chance to reach more people, more readers.”
Set in Caerphilly, We Don’t Know What We’re Doing reveals its treasures through a series of short stories, offering vivid and moving glimpses of the lost, lonely and bemused, and deals with coming of age, of ordinary life, mundane jobs and family life, depression, the struggles and oppression of motherhood and more.
Elsewhere, Philip Gross won the Roland Mathias Poetry Award for his collection, Love Songs of Carbon, and Caryl Lewis took home the Welsh-language Wales Book of the Year 2016 award for her novel Y Bwthyn (Y Lolfa).
Director of National Trust Wales, Justin Albert, who was on the English-language judging panel, said: “This year’s shortlist consisted of nine outstanding books which highlight the diversity and the breadth of Welsh Literature.
“Whether experienced or upcoming, these writers are great talents who have succeeded in proving that Wales is a world-class contributor to literature.”
Lleucu Siencyn, Chief Executive of Literature Wales added: “Congratulations to all of this year’s winners. If you haven’t already done so, now is the time to pick up and read these books; a literary feast awaits you.”
As for Thomas, his thoughts have already turned to his next project: “I’m at work on my second book now, and it’s novel. I’m not fully sure what it’s about yet, but I know it’ll be set in Caerphilly again.
“I don’t try to plan my work too much in advance; I like the characters to surprise me and take the story wherever it needs to go.”