Arinze Ifeakandu was named winner of the Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize 2023 on Thursday, May 11, 2023.
Dylan Thomas was a Welsh poet and writer who became widely popular in his lifetime and remained so after his premature death at the age of 39. The International Dylan Thomas Prize aimed at encouraging raw creative talent worldwide was set up by the Swansea University in his honour. The £20,000 Prize is awarded annually to the best published or produced literary work in the English language, written by an author aged 39 or under. Past winners include Fiona McFarlane, Max Porter, Joshua Ferris, Claire Vaye Watkins, Maggie Shipstead, and Rachel Trezise. In 2018, Kayo Chingonyi went home with the honours while Raven Leilani won the 2021 edition.
The jury for 2023 was chaired by BBC Audio Books Editor Di Speirs alongside former BBC Wales arts and media correspondent Jon Gower, bestselling author Maggie Shipstead, Rachel Long, and author Prajwal Parajuly. They announced the shortlist on March 23 before the winner was revealed on Thursday, prior to International Dylan Thomas Day on Sunday 14 May, with November 2023 marking seventy years since the Welsh poet’s death. This year’s honour went to the Orion, Weidenfeld & Nicolson published short fiction collection God’s Children Are Little Broken Things by Arinze Ifeakandu.
Chair of Judges, Di Speirs, said: ‘We were unanimous in our praise and admiration for this exhilarating collection of nine stories. Arinze Ifeakandu’s debut shines with maturity, the writing bold, refreshing and exacting but never afraid to linger and to allow characters and situations to develop and change, so that the longer stories are almost novels in themselves. A kaleidoscopic reflection of queer life and love in Nigeria, the constraints, the dangers and the humanity, this is a collection that we wanted to press into many readers’ hands around the world and which left us excited to know what Arinze Ifeakandu will write next.’
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