Cynan Jones

Cynan Jones chiefly writes short novels. His first book The Long Dry won a 2007 Society of Authors Betty Trask award, and The Dig, a chapter of which was shortlisted for the 2013 Sunday Times EFG Private Bank short story award, won a 2014 Jerwood Fiction Uncovered prize and the Wales Book of the Year fiction prize 2015. His books have been translated into numerous languages and published in the US. In the UK, Granta republished his backlist when they took on The Dig in 2014.

Cynan has also written fiction for anthologies and magazines and for BBC Radio 4, and a screenplay for the BAFTA-winning crime series Hinterland. He is heavily influenced by his native west Wales, his work often centring around natural allegories that inform the human situation at the core of the story.

In the decade or so between starting to write and being able to support himself by doing so, Cynan did a number of jobs. Among other things he mentored in a behavioural unit, ran a wine shop, laboured on building sites and stood in as a kitchen porter. Before concentrating on fiction, he spent his mid-twenties in Glasgow working as a copywriter, an experience he’s found invaluable when it comes to talking about using words and helping others with them.