Drift: Winner of the Wales Book of the Year

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Come down the travelators, exit Sainsbury's, turn right and follow the pedestrianised walkway to Crown Walk and turn right - and Coles will be right in front of you. While the sea is a crucial motif, and fisherman masculinity is of particular interest when discussing Joseph’s character, there is not enough space for them here.

To see how the myths of the selkies and the legend of the goddess Atargatis are wed to a love against the world and a firm need to fulfil your destiny. However, this is a notion that is drifting from us, with nature more and more being regarded as dispensable in our digitised lives.

The perspectives it takes cover not only Nefyn, Hamza, Joseph, Efa and Emrys – but also military personal who shuffle paper, forge records and neglect their wives. Literature Wales is grateful for the support of the award’s sponsors and partners: Arts Council of Wales, Welsh Government, The Rhys Davies Trust, Books Council of Wales, Wales Arts Review, Golwg360 and BBC Cymru Wales . She was raised in Aberaeron before moving at the age of twelve to her family's farm in the parish of Dihewyd.

Perhaps that’s why it fell away for me in the last section, when the story goes from beautifully judged characters and mystery to a plotline which for me was unnecessarily fantastical. Overall, it is the setting of the story that takes centre stage in Drift rather than the characters, who seem to happily embrace the influence the sea has over them and their present and past relationships, albeit some more than others. Nefyn drifts through those days, heavily medicated by the pills Joseph leaves behind “to keep her safe”, looked in on by kind neighbour Efa, caretaker of a string of empty holiday homes whose husband is beset with early-onset dementia. It centres around a small welsh village by the sea, and the life of twins, one boy, one girl, who live there.The sea’s omnipresence, too, makes the connection between Nefyn and it seem more native, natural – the sea the “temperature of blood”. And then north of Llangrannog there’s Cwmtydu, which is a place I used to be taken a lot, it’s almost like the cove in Drift, it has steep rises, there’s an old lime kiln just at the back of the beach, and there are just so many stories there. And it’s that slipping away that hurts the most when this emotional hand-grenade of a book deftly pulls out the pin, as briny waters claim their own and a lone man sets sail. Her brother, Joseph is an almost-twin, born virtually in the same breath of their mother Arianell, and he shares some sort of umbilical with her, often knowing what she is doing, or doing wrong, as when she sends a soldier hunting for Hamza walking into the sea and to his death.

The film adaptation – with a screenplay by Caryl herself – went on to win six Welsh BAFTAs and the Spirit of the Festival Award at the 2010 Celtic Media Festival. It is possible to use this review for promotional purposes, but the following acknowledgment should be included: A review from www.Nefyn, a young woman as tender as a mother and as secretive as the sea, nurses him back to health in the house she shares with her brother, Joseph.