Drift: Winner of the Wales Book of the Year

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Nefyn has always been different. Even her twin brother, Joseph doesn't understand her. Because there is something peculiar about her deep connection to the sea on the Welsh coast, something otherworldly and magical: "We're all just a collection of things. Brought together by the sea. Torn apart." This is a tide which will fill the little cove near Nefyn’s house to the brim and signal it is time for Hamza’s sadness-inducing departure.

Indeed the sea is her true element and she seems somewhat stranded on land, where she lives in a clifftop cottage that has seen better days and needs a new roof. This is a novel told via an omniscient narrative voice. The perspectives it takes cover not only Nefyn, Hamza, Joseph, Efa and Emrys – but also military personal who shuffle paper, forge records and neglect their wives. Such figures naturally fill an antagonistic role. Though their worlds are depicted without overt judgement or moral imposition, the pace of the novel means there is little time for enquiry into some fleeting moments of context (say, why a council estate upbringing has fed into calculating behaviour).

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Hamza is a Syrian map-maker who escapes the custody of the army on the Welsh coast. He has seemingly been kept there as a consequence of extraordinary rendition, where prisoners are forcibly abducted from one country to another and has consequently been at the not-so-tender mercies of his gaolers, including one, Owens, who is straight from the sadistic wing of novelistic central casting, Caryl Lewis, the author of that modern classic Martha, Jac a Sianco has long been considered one of the most accomplished writers in Wales but Drift seems altogether a step up, one is tempted to say a sea-change, given the assuredly confident way in which the quiet waves of her consistently clear and delightful prose carry the reader along. It’s a love story which burns as brightly as a candle, but starts guttering almost as soon as it is lit. And it’s that slipping away that hurts the most when this emotional hand-grenade of a book deftly pulls out the pin, as briny waters claim their own and a lone man sets sail. There is a mythic quality to the novel, both in the heroism of ordinary people in the face of power, and the character of Nefyn, with her folkloric affinity to the sea. These mysteries are revealed slowly and delicately, lending them credibility. Nefyn’s powers are initially underplayed, in a way that makes them strangely believable. Other books that come to mind are How Saints Die by Carmen Marcus and the surreal stories of the Scottish writer Kirsty Logan, who uses myth to great effect in her fiction. There are also shades of Donal Ryan’s From a Low and Quiet Sea and Sarah Hall’s recent novel Burntcoat, which had an immigrant love story at its centre.

For fans of THE LAMPLIGHTERS and EXIT WEST, the hauntingly atmospheric English-language debut from the acclaimed, multi-award-winning Welsh author: a mesmerising love story between a young Welsh woman and a Syrian mapmaker. THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE DEBUT FROM THREE-TIME WINNER OF WALES BOOK OF THE YEAR CARYL LEWIS: A STORY OF LOVE, MAGIC AND THE IRRESISTIBLE LURE OF THE SEA. He writes letters home in case he himself never makes it whilst waiting for the Perigean tide which comes only three or four times a year, when the moon leaves its apogee and bows ‘to take a closer look at Earth.’It's a story of being different and searching for that connection. The way others look at you and judge you without knowing the person. It centres around a small welsh village by the sea, and the life of twins, one boy, one girl, who live there. The girl is seen as different, she sees herself as different and has a deep connection with the sea and the natural world. You can't help but fall in love with her as you watch as her world changes when she rescues a stranger on the beach.