Dylan Thomas Prize 2026 shortlist announced
In the UK, the shortlist for Swansea University’s Dylan Thomas Prize has been announced.
This year, the shortlist is composed of 4 novels and 2 poetry collections.
The shortlisted titles are:
- To Rest Our Minds and Bodies (Harriet Armstrong, Les Fugitives)
- We Pretty Pieces of Flesh (Colwill Brown, Chatto & Windus)
- Joy Is My Middle Name (Sasha Debevec-McKenny, Fitzcarraldo)
- Under the Blue (Suzannah V Evans, Bloomsbury)
- Open, Heaven (Seán Hewitt, Vintage)
- Borderline Fiction (Derek Owusu, A&U Canongate).
Worth £20,000 (A$38,326), the prize is awarded to the best literary work in the English language by a writer aged 39 or under, celebrating Swansea-born Thomas’s “39 years of creativity and productivity”.
Chair of judges Irenosen Okojie said, “This is a marvellous, galvanising shortlist. We’re thrilled by the scope, breadth and depth of these works across forms. These books have profound things to say about the ways we live [and] what it means to be human, and overall [they] are propulsive reads that imbue the writing space with new energies.”
Last year’s prize was awarded to Palestinian writer Yasmin Zaher for her novel The Coin (Bonnier).
The 2026 winner will be announced on 14 May at a ceremony in Swansea.
More details about this year’s shortlist are available on the Swansea University website.
Category: International awards International news
