ABERAERON novelist and TV scriptwriter Cynan Jones has beaten a host of top writers to the coveted BBC National Short Story Award with BookTrust 2017 for his story The Edge of the Shoal.

Described by writer and judge Jon McGregor as a “genuinely thrilling” piece of writing, it was also praised by fellow writer and judge Eimear McBride for its “tenderly devastating exploration of the body as it hangs outside time” and for being “as perfect a short story as I’ve ever read”.

Mr Jones was presented with the prize of £15,000 by the 2017 chair of judges, Joanna Trollope, at last week’s ceremony held in the BBC’s Radio Theatre in London.

Cynan Jones was born, and still lives, near Aberaeron.

The Edge of the Shoal tells the story of a man who sets out unseen to scatter his father’s ashes.

The writer says he was inspired to write a story “with no definite sense of place; where a person is literally cast adrift from place and relationship”.

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