Carys Davies – författare

WINNER OF THE WALES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2025WINNER OF THE ONDAATJE PRIZE 2025LONGLISTED FOR THE 2024 HIGHLAND BOOK PRIZE'Tender, riveting and inventive is Clear, the newest offering and masterpiece from the brilliant Carys Davies. It will take your breath away' Sarah Jessica Parker'An exquisite, hopeful masterpiece' Rachel Joyce'A poignant, profound depiction of both solitude and connection. Carys Davies has written a masterful, discreetly sublime book' Hernan Diaz1843. On a remote Scottish island, Ivar, the sole occupant, leads a life of quiet isolation until the day he finds a man unconscious on the beach below the cliffs. The newcomer is John Ferguson, an impoverished church minister sent to evict Ivar and turn the island into grazing land for sheep. Unaware of the stranger's intentions, Ivar takes him into his home, and in spite of the two men having no common language, a fragile bond begins to form between them. Meanwhile, on the mainland, John's wife, Mary, anxiously awaits news of his mission.Against the rugged backdrop of this faraway spot beyond Shetland, Carys Davies's intimate drama unfolds with tension and tenderness: a touching and crystalline study of ordinary people buffeted by history and a powerful exploration of the distances and connections between us. Perfectly structured and surprising at every turn, Clear is a marvel of storytelling, an exquisite short novel by a master of the form.

“A perfectly formed gem ...”—Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEWFrom remote Australian settlements to the snows of Siberia, from Colorado to Cumbria, restless teenagers, middle-aged civil servants, and Quaker spinsters traverse expanses of solitude to reveal the secrets of the human heart.Written with raw and rigorous prose, charged throughout by a prickly wit, the stories in The Redemption of Galen Pike remind us how little we know of the lives of others.Carys Davies is currently a 2016-2017 Cullman Fellow at the New York Public Library.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE RATHBONES FOLIO PRIZE'This short novel will live on in your imagination long after you read the last page' Claire MessudWhen Cy Bellman, American settler and widowed father of ten-year-old Bess, reads in the newspaper that huge ancient bones have been discovered in a Kentucky swamp, he leaves his small Pennsylvania farm and daughter to find out if the rumours are true: that the giant monsters are still alive, and roam the uncharted wilderness beyond the Mississippi River. West is the extraordinary story of a quest for a myth, of Bellman's journey into the unknown and of Bess, waiting at home for her father to return, facing monsters of her own. It is an eerie and timeless epic-in-miniature. 'One of the best books I've read this year... It's a book you can read in a day and that will resonate all year long in your head' Sunday Times 'Carys Davies is a deft, audacious visionary... Twisting the heart as few others can...' Téa Obreht, author of The Tiger's Wife

THE SUNDAY TIMES NOVEL OF THE YEAR 2020'A compelling read. Carys Davies has an amazing gift' Penelope LivelyFrom the prize-winning author of West, a collision between old and new, east and west, in a former British hill station in South India.Fleeing the dark undercurrents of his life in Britain, Hilary Byrd takes refuge in Ooty, a hill station in South India. There he finds solace in life's simple pleasures, travelling by rickshaw around the small town with his driver Jamshed and staying in a mission house beside the local presbytery where the Padre and his adoptive daughter Priscilla have taken Hilary under their wing.As Hilary's friendship with the young woman grows, he begins to wonder whether his purpose lies in this new relationship. But religious and nationalist tensions are brewing and the mission house may not be the safe haven it seems...'Brilliantly crafted' Daily Mail'An absolute triumph' Cynan Jones'Subtle with nuance and alive with immediacy' Sunday Times

1843. On a remote Scottish island, Ivar, the sole occupant, leads a life of quiet isolation until the day he finds a man unconscious on the beach below the cliffs. The newcomer is John Ferguson, an impoverished church minister sent to evict Ivar and turn the island into grazing land for sheep. Unaware of the stranger's intentions, Ivar takes him into his home, and in spite of the two men having no common language, a fragile bond begins to form between them. Meanwhile on the mainland, John's wife Mary anxiously awaits news of his mission.Against the rugged backdrop of this faraway spot beyond Shetland, Carys Davies's intimate drama unfolds with tension and tenderness: a touching and crystalline study of ordinary people buffeted by history and a powerful exploration of the distances and connections between us. Perfectly structured and surprising at every turn, Clear is a marvel of storytelling, an exquisite short novel by a master of the form.

Shortlisted for the 2009 Roland Mathias PrizeShortlisted for the 2009 Calvino PrizeLonglisted for the 2008 International Frank O’Connor Short Story AwardLonglisted for the 2008 Wales Book of the Year: FictionFrom the award-winning author of West and The Mission HouseSome New Ambush is the first collection of short stories from award-winning writer Carys Davies. Love, loss, birth, death, betrayal, madness – they all lie in wait for Davies’s characters in their startlingly different worlds: a dry cleaner’s shop in contemporary Chicago, a mining town in South Wales in the sixties, a lunatic asylum in nineteenth century northern England.Shot through with wit and aching emotional poignancy, these stories tell of how we attempt to confront the things life throws in our path – often when we least expect them, and in places where we never thought to look. They tell of the mistakes we make along the way, and of how we try to deal with the whole difficult, unpredictable business. There is the boy who steps into his best friend’s clothes in a desperate bid to fulfil his dreams, the man who comes up with an amazing new invention to win the heart of the woman he loves, the bored young wife doomed to live on an island where everything is red, the middle-aged woman who finds a baby in the sand and passes it off as her own.

Winner of the 2015 International Frank O’Connor Short Story AwardWinner of the 2015 Jerwood Fiction Uncovered PrizeShortlisted for the 2015 Wales Book of the Year: FictionShortlisted for the 2015 Edge Hill Short Story PrizeThe Globe 100: The Best International Fiction of 2017In a remote Australian settlement a young wife with an untellable secret reluctantly invites her neighbour into her home. A Quaker spinster offers companionship to a condemned man in a Colorado jail. In the ice and snows of Siberia an office employee from Birmingham witnesses a scene that will change her life. At a jubilee celebration in a northern English town a middle-aged alderman opens his heart to Queen Victoria. A teenage daughter leaves home in search of adventure. High in the Cumbrian fells a woman seeks help from her father’s enemy.Spare, precise, charged with a prickly wit, the stories in Carys Davies's sparkling second collection remind us how little we know of the lives of others.