Owen Sheers was born in Fiji in 1974 and brought up in Abergavenny, South Wales. The winner of an Eric Gregory Award and the 1999 Vogue Young Writer’s Award, his first collection of poetry, The Blue Book was short-listed for the Welsh Book of the Year and the Forward Prize Best 1st Collection 2001. His debut prose work The Dust Diaries, a non-fiction narrative set in Zimbabwe, was short-listed for the Royal Society of Literature’s Ondaatje Prize and won the Welsh Book of the Year 2005. Owen has also written for Radio, TV and newspapers. In 2004 he was Writer in Residence at The Wordsworth Trust and was selected as one of the Poetry Book Society’s 20 Next Generation Poets. Owen’s 2nd collection of poetry, Skirrid Hill won a 2006 Somerset Maugham Award. Unicorns, almost his one man play based on the life and poetry of the WWII poet Keith Douglas was developed by Old Vic, New Voices. He is currently writing a play about WWII poet Alun Lewis and collaborating with composer Rachel Portman on a dramatic song-cycle to be performed at the BBC Proms 2007. A recent recipient of the Cullman Centre Fellowship, Owen Sheers lives in London.

Books by Owen Sheers

Resistance

by Owen Sheers

In a remote and rugged Welsh valley in 1944, in the wake of a German invasion, all the men have disappeared overnight, apparently to join the underground resistance. Their abandoned wives, a tiny group of farm women, are soon trapped in the valley by an unusually harsh winter—along with a handful of war-weary German soldiers on a secret mission.