Owen Sheers

Owen Sheers is an author, poet and playwright. He has published two poetry collections, The Blue Book and Skirrid Hill which won a Somerset Maugham Award. His debut prose work The Dust Diaries, a non-fiction narrative set in Zimbabwe won the Welsh Book of the Year 2005. His first novel, Resistance has been translated into eleven languages and adapted into a film. His latest novel, I Saw A Man, was shortlisted for the 2015 Prix Femina Etranger in France. Owen’s writing for theatre includes National Theatre of Wales’ 72 hour site-specific production in Port Talbot, The Passion; a play created with wounded service personnel, The Two Worlds of Charlie F., which toured the UK and Canada and won the Amnesty International Freedom of Expression Award, and NTW’s Mametz. He has collaborated with composers on two oratorios, The Water Diviner’s Tale and A Violence of Gifts. His verse drama Pink Mist was commissioned by BBC Radio 4 and won the Hay Festival Poetry Medal and the Wales Book of the Year 2014. The stage premiere of Pink Mist, produced by Bristol Old Vic, was a 2015 top ten theatre choice in The Guardian and The Observer. The Green Hollow, his film poem to mark the 50th anniversary of the Aberfan disaster was broadcast on the BBC in October 2016.’ A recipient of the St David’s Award for Culture in 2016, he has been Artist in Residence for the Welsh Rugby Union, Writer in Residence at The Wordsworth Trust and a Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Fellow at the New York Public Library. He is currently Professor in Creativity at Swansea University.