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LLOYD JONES FOR MR CASSINI

The literati of Wales packed into a crowded ballroom in Cardiff last night to hear the winners of the annual Wales Book of the Year Award announced.

For his outstanding novel, Mr Cassini (Seren, 2006) the winner of the English language award of £10,000 prize plus a hand crafted trophy was Lloyd Jones.

Mr Cassini is a remarkable successor to Jones’ widely acclaimed first novel, Mr Vogel. When he wrote this Lloyd Jones walked around Wales – a journey of more than a thousand miles – for Mr Cassini he took a different route, crossing Wales seven times in seven different directions.

The result is an amazing journey through the geography of one man’s troubled mind as he tries to recover the lost years of his childhood. His protagonist is Duxie, a dreamer with holes in his memory. With the help of a mysterious and beautiful girl, Olly, he sets out on a quest to fill the gaps in his history. As they search the landscapes and myths of the past they uncover domestic and national tyranny. The result is an ambitious and exhilarating exploration of lost childhood and distortions of the past, with Wales at its very heart.

Lloyd Jones says of his book: ‘Mr Cassini is a study of tyranny and its after effects on families and countries. It has many themes, including monsters, snow, picnics, islands, drugs, rainbows, eating disorders, insects, justice and magic. It’s also about an incident I experienced in hospital at Llandudno, when I was battling alcoholism. At some stage, one night, I was transported mentally to a perfectly white room which had two virtual doors, both unmarked, and I made a simple – and final – choice between the door which represented life and the door which represented death. I took the one which led to life, and I’m still here today – to receive this splendid award.’

As the UK’s only bilingual literary prize, there was another major prize winner, too, the £10,000 Welsh language award went to Llwyd Owen for Ffydd Gobaith Cariad.

And for the first time this year the four runners up (two in each language) each received a cheque for £1,000, they are:
Christine Evans for Growth Rings (Seren)
Jim Perrin for The Climbing Essays (The In Pinn)
T Robin Chapman for Un Bywyd o Blith Nifer (Gwasg Gomer)
Gwen Pritchard Jones for Dygwyl Eneidiau (Gwasg Gwynedd)

Wales Book of the Year is organised by Academi, the body responsible for promoting literature in Wales, with support from the Arts Council of Wales, the Welsh Assembly Government and the Welsh Books Council. It is the highest profile event in the Welsh literary calendar, recognizing the best Welsh language and English language works in the fields of creative writing and literary criticism published in the previous year.

The English language judges this year were: poet and critic, Patrick McGuinness; editor, academic and critic, Katie Gramich; and journalist and broadcaster Carolyn Hitt. They paid tribute to the exceptionally high standard of the writing this year, and commented that any one of the ten longlisted titles would have been deserving of the award, but unanimously selected Lloyd Jones’ Mr Cassini, heralding it as a future classic.

Mr Cassini by Lloyd Jones
(Seren, 2006)
£7.99 [ISBN: 1854114255]
BUY THIS BOOK (on Gwales.com)