Reading List · Literary Prizes
Dylan Thomas died at thirty-nine, so the prize in his name is only for writers aged thirty-nine or under. It has been given since 2006 by Swansea, his home town, to one book in English a year, and any form counts: novels, short stories, poetry and drama. Eighteen winners so far, from Max Porter and Raven Leilani to Patricia Lockwood, and many of them were first books.
By Lisanne Swart · 18 winners since 2006 · Writers aged 39 or under · All literary prizes · Last reviewed 22 September 2026
Click a title to read about that book further down ↓
Entries for the 2027 prize opened on 7 September 2026 and close on 6 November. The winner is announced on 13 May 2027; the longlist and shortlist dates are not out yet, and this page is updated when they are.
Quick answer
The Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize goes each year to the best published literary work in English by a writer aged 39 or under, the age at which Dylan Thomas died. Any form of fiction counts: novels, short stories, poetry and drama. It was launched in 2006 and is worth £20,000. There have been 18 winners. The latest is Sasha Debevec-McKenney’s poetry collection Joy Is My Middle Name, announced on 14 May 2026.
How this page chooses
This page has every winner, so there is nothing to choose between: the timeline at the top shows all eighteen with the form each one is written in, and every title has its own entry further down, in the same order.
Under each book is a line of plain fact about the book or its author, and nothing that cannot be checked.
Oldest first, one for each year. The line in red is a fact about the book or its author, not an opinion about it.
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Short stories about young working-class people in the Rhondda valley in south Wales: among them Sarah, who has cerebral palsy, a petty thief called Spiderman, and a girl called ’Chelle.
The first winner of the prize.
Seven long stories set in Colombia, the United States, Tehran, Australia, Hiroshima and Vietnam, ending on a crowded boat of refugees leaving Vietnam.
Le was born in Vietnam in 1978 and came to Australia as a refugee when he was a baby.
War poems written partly while Fenton’s husband was deployed in Baghdad as an army medic, about the war and about waiting at home for someone who is in it.
The first book of poetry to win the prize.
Ruth goes with her husband Euan and their young daughter to Bahrain for his missionary work. Shut in a guarded compound, she starts to doubt her faith and her marriage, and grows close to a troubled teenager, Noor.
Caldwell won the Walter Scott Prize in 2023 with These Days.
Winn Van Meter gathers the family on the island of Waskeke for his daughter Daphne’s wedding, and spends the weekend distracted by a club that will not have him and by one of the bridesmaids.
It was Shipstead’s first novel, and also won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for First Fiction.
Ten stories about Nevada past and present: a prospecting hermit, a brothel out in the desert, and the people the state leaves behind.
It also won The Story Prize in 2013.
Paul O’Rourke, a New York dentist who hates the internet, finds that someone has built him a website and accounts, and is using them to say things about religion that Paul never said.
It was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2014.
After their mother dies, two young boys and their father, who is writing a book about Ted Hughes, are visited by Crow, who stays until they no longer need him. Told in prose, dialogue and verse.
Cillian Murphy played the father on stage in 2018, and Benedict Cumberbatch in the film The Thing with Feathers in 2025.
McFarlane’s first collection of stories, spread over continents and centuries. In the title story an Australian farmer turns to the Old Testament to end a drought.
Her later collection, Highway 13, won The Story Prize in 2025.
Poems about race, masculinity and being “British and not British”, by a poet who was born in Zambia and came to Britain at six.
The title means initiation: the rites a Luvale boy goes through to become a man.
Forty-eight hours on a London estate after the killing of a soldier sets off riots, told in turn by Selvon, Ardan, Yusuf and others who live there.
It was longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2018.
Linked stories set in Houston, around a young Black and Latino man who works in his family’s restaurant while the family comes apart and he works out who he loves.
It also won the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence.
Edie, twenty-three, starts an affair with Eric, who is in an open marriage. After she loses her job she ends up living in his house in New Jersey, with his wife Rebecca and their adopted daughter Akila.
It also won the Kirkus Prize and the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize in 2020.
A woman famous for her posts lives inside “the portal”, the internet, until her sister’s baby is born with a rare genetic condition and real life takes over. Written in short fragments.
It was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2021.
Nine stories about love between men in contemporary Nigeria, on university campuses and in cities, where that love has to be kept hidden.
Ifeakandu was shortlisted for the Caine Prize in 2017.
Stephen, a south Londoner with Ghanaian parents, over three summers: he chooses music over university, falls out with his father, and follows the story back to Accra.
His first novel, Open Water, won the Costa First Novel Award in 2021.
A young Palestinian woman teaches at a middle school in New York, is obsessed with keeping clean, and goes into business reselling Birkin bags with a homeless man she calls Trenchcoat, as her life slowly comes apart.
It was Zaher’s first novel.
Poems about getting through your twenties and into your thirties: sex, race, womanhood, addiction, sobriety, shopping and pop culture.
Her first collection. She was thirty-five when she won.
Dylan Thomas was born in Swansea in 1914 and died in New York in 1953, at thirty-nine. The prize takes its age limit from that: it is for writers who are still at the age he never got past, and it calls itself the largest prize in the world for young writers.
Because of the age limit, most winners are first or second books. That makes this one of the better prizes to follow if you want to find a writer early: Max Porter, Raven Leilani and Patricia Lockwood all won it with their first novels.
Most prizes on this site judge one form at a time. This one puts a poetry collection on the same shortlist as a novel. Poetry has won three times: Elyse Fenton in 2010, Kayo Chingonyi in 2018 and Sasha Debevec-McKenney in 2026. Short stories have won six times, from Rachel Trezise’s Fresh Apples in 2006 to Arinze Ifeakandu in 2023.
A prize for the best published literary work in English by a writer aged 39 or under, given by Swansea University. Novels, short stories, poetry and drama are all eligible.
Sasha Debevec-McKenney, for the poetry collection Joy Is My Middle Name, announced on 14 May 2026.
Because Dylan Thomas died at thirty-nine. The prize is for writers who are still that age or younger.
£20,000 to the winner. It was £30,000 until 2021.
Yes. Three poetry collections have won: Clamor (2010), Kumukanda (2018) and Joy Is My Middle Name (2026).
The prize was given every other year at first, and became yearly from 2010. There was no prize in 2015 because the timetable was changed; it came back in May 2016.
On 13 May 2027. Entries close on 6 November 2026; the longlist and shortlist dates have not been announced yet.
Every winner has a full entry on this page. If you want something short and strange, start with Grief Is the Thing with Feathers; for a novel of now, Luster or No One Is Talking About This.
Winner list and 2027 dates last verified 22 September 2026.
The notes on this page are all mine,
and the books are all theirs.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“Incredible. An exuberant, blistering collection full of life, humour and ideas. Debevec-McKenney is a ferociously gifted talent.”
— Irenosen Okojie, chair of the 2026 judges
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