Owen Sheers

Owen Sheers is a highly acclaimed Welsh author, playwright, and poet. He was born in Suva, Fiji in 1974, but was brought up in London and Abergavenny, where his parents returned after his birth. Sheers spent most of his life in Abergavenny and received his early education at King Henry VIII School there. He later attended Oxford, New College, and the University of East Anglia.

Sheers is a multi-talented artist who has made significant contributions to literature and drama. He has published several poetry collections, including Skirrid Hill, which won the Somerset Maugham Award in 2005. His debut novel, Resistance, was a critical and commercial success, translated into ten languages and adapted into a film. The Dust Diaries, his nonfiction narrative about Zimbabwe, won the Wales Book of the Year Award in 2005.

Sheers' awards for poetry and drama include the Hay Festival Medal for Poetry and Wales Book of the Year Award for Pink Mist, and the Amnesty International Freedom of Expression Award for his play The Two Worlds of Charlie F. His most recent novel, I Saw a Man, was shortlisted for the Prix Femina Etranger. Sheers has also been a New York Public Library Cullman Fellow and is currently a Professor in Creativity at Swansea University. He is married to Katherine, who is from Abergavenny, and they have a daughter together.