Owen Sheers

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Review: Sparse prose, clever plot and subtle lyricism combine to make I Saw A Man by Owen Sheers a classy novel

i_saw_a_man_uk_coverIt is not surprising to discover that Owen Sheers, author of the newly-released I Saw A Man, is also a poet and a playwright. Evidence of those skills are apparent throughout this ingenious and captivating novel where three men are inextricably woven together by a series of tragic events, each culpable in their own way, each also a victim of those events.

Michael Turner is a journalist who has become internationally famous particularly for a book written after years of intense observation of the subjects and immersion in their lives yet in which the writer is completely “eradicated”. He leaves his Welsh cottage and moves to London after the death of his journalist wife Caroline in a US drone attack while she is on assignment in Pakistan. On the day he moves into his new apartment he meets Josh Nelson, a Lehman Brothers banker who lives next door, and who seems to go out of his way to absorb him into his family, wife Samantha and two young daughters. Until tragedy strikes and through his guilt and pain Josh realizes that just as he has not been the perfect husband and father, Michael may not be the benign friend he had thought.

And on the other side of the world USAF Major Daniel McCullen who gave up his

Dylan Thomas prize long list reveals exciting literary treasures

PileofBooksIt’s been a big week for literary prizes with the announcement of the Man Booker long list  hogging most of the headlines. This has resulted in the long list for the annual Dylan Thomas Prize going largely unnoticed which is a shame, not least because this is the centenary year of the Wales’s most famous son.

The Dylan Thomas prize was set up seven years ago to encourage and develop exciting young talent and is open to writers aged 39, across all genres. The list just announced includes former Man Booker winner Eleanor Catton (the Luminaries) and Bailey’s Women’s Prize winner Eimear McBride (A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing).  Welsh poet and author Owen Sheers is there as is fellow poet Jamaican Kei Miller, crime writer Tom Rob

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