Drift: Winner of the Wales Book of the Year

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Irish TimesSister and brother Nefyn and Joseph, both in their mid-twenties, have lived alone in an isolated cottage on a clifftop on the coast of West Wales for a decade since their fisherman father was lost in a sea storm. When the storm clears, “waves rippled guiltily this morning, their energy lost, the breeze gentle and even.

To witness how Folklore dances along with issues that concern us all: racism, cruelty, loss, the daily struggle to survive. Lewis finely weaves her imaginings, expertly paced, until their intensity churns like a collapsing wave. Nefyn has a close affinity to the workings of the tides, and over time has built up a vast collection of specimens washed ashore into their cove – shells, egg cases, seeds and trinkets from distant lands – which she keeps on display in glass cabinets. If anything, it’s the more mundane, realistic parts of the story - the soldiers in the military base and Joseph’s trips north - that hold it back. Mark: There’s such a strong sense of place in Drift, with the stone cottage overlooking the cove, the empty holiday homes along the coast, and just being out in nature.Showing such kindness shatters the confining fabric of their lives, which though more precarious are also made fuller, better.

In a culture awash with the plotless un-novel, it’s refreshing to see the folkloric blended with hard-nosed themes, persuasive proof that a novel need not be just one thing or another. For those who are unfamiliar with Celtic myths of undersea people, one may prefer it if the author explicitly stated whether Arianell was a mermaid or a selkie.uk, ‘In October 2020, the Home Office published data showing that over 50% of the UK’s religious hate crimes had been targeted towards Muslims in the preceding year.