News Archive

From Porthcawl to Albania,
literary award shortlistings with an
international flavour for Seren

A ’whodunit’ set in Porthcawl and the translation of a novel depicting a moving portrayal of life under Marxist rule in Albania have proved to be a winning literary combination for independent publisher Seren, with two prestigious award shortlistings recently announced.

Sea Holly by Robert Minhinnick is on a shortlist of 6 for the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize, worth £10,000, that marks a distinguished work of fiction which evokes the spirit of a place. The Loser by Fatos Kongoli has been shortlisted for the TR Fyvel Book Award (administered by Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Awards) which is given to a work that gives voice to issues and stories which might otherwise go unnoticed.  

Sea Holly is a stunning first novel by award-winning south Wales poet and essayist Robert Minhinnick, about the strange world of a small Welsh seaside town – Porthcawl. Set in the final week of the holiday season, Sea Holly vividly combines the seedy world of a funfair and a missing person mystery, with the inexorable natural world set on the edge of the sea, and the sand which permeates the novel, “Minhinnick brilliantly evokes the melancholy of this refuge for the washed-up” writes Kate Saunders of The Times.

The judges for the RSL Ondaatje Award this year are Elaine Feinstein, Russell Celyn Jones and Romesh Gunesekera; the winner will be announced at a celebratory dinner on 28th April at The Travellers Club in London.

Robert Minhinnick says “I had been living in a Welsh seaside resort for many years. Every summer day, when the wind was in the right direction, music from the local funfair would always blow into our garden. The town and its seascape are as vital and alive as any character in the book - I’m delighted the Ondaatje prize judges have picked up on this element."

The shortlisting comes hot on the heels of the news that Minhinnick has won a Creative Wales bursary worth £20,000, to write a collection of essays on the theme of people moving across the planet. A prize-winning poet, Robert also won the Wales Book of the Year Award in 2006 for his collection of travel essays To Babel and Back (Seren).

Described as the most important Albanian novel to emerge in the post-communist era, The Loser by Fatos Kongoli is, surprisingly, the first appearance in English of a novelist with a Europe-wide reputation. The Loser met with immediate success in Albania on publication in 1992; its confessional monologue gave voice to the psychological torment of a nation during years of Marxist rule.

The Loser is a moving portrayal of the suppression by a controlled press and other repressive state mechanisms, not just of art but of a whole people denied the freedom to express themselves individually, and to circulate and discuss ideas about ways of living and thinking. In short, it is about the suppression of an entire population and the denial of its right to freedom, and the kind of personal despair such despotism produces. Yet on another level The Loser is also a novel of secret love and personal loss, Amanda Hopkinson of The Independent writes “The Loser is among the best new novels published this year.”

The judges for the TR Fyvel Award are Maureen Freely, Mark Kermode, Richard Sambrook, Rabinder Singh QC, Lemn Sissay and Peter Wright; the award will be announced at a ceremony in London on April 21st.

Seren Publisher Mick Felton said “We’re absolutely delighted for both Robert Minhinnick and Fatos Kongoli that their very different works have been recognized by such distinguished judges for such prestigious prizes. And we feel very pleased and justified for taking the risk of publishing new fiction like this. It’s a sign of the strength of small independent publishers that they can compete with the multinationals on shortlists like these.”

For more information contact Jen Campbell at Seren on:
jencampbell@seren-books.com or 01656 663018