AN Aberystwyth lecturer has won the National Eisteddfod Prose Medal.

Eurig Salisbury won this year’s competition to compose a volume of creative prose of no more than 40,000 words under the theme of ‘Galw’ (Calling).

Delivering the adjudication from the Pavilion stage, and discussing the book entitled Cai, Angharad Dafis said: “This is a deftly written novel which opens with a series of images of Aberystwyth, drawing the reader’s attention immediately. This is an exciting and well-written story about the desire of a Welsh artist to discover the truth about the disappearance of her niece.

“Maybe some elements are too obvious at times, but the structure is beautifully crafted. As Jane Aaron said, ‘Bringing the darkness .. to daylight; that is the ‘call’ that stimulates Cai and Ffion as they fumble in the National Library archives.

“This is not a bare story with no context: Dafydd Morgan Lewis saw a political allegory here ‘We sense that something is churning in the nation’s subconscious’ he says, ’some discomfort and great disquiet. Other issues such as the role of women in the art world (and society) ... rising to the surface as well.’

“Can it be a mystery or detective novel, even if the mystery is not always hidden? Cai will have a broad appeal, and the author’s feat is that he has managed to use the framework of a popular novel to say things that desperately need to be told about Wales and the Welsh language. We as the three judges are unanimous – in a competition that the beloved John Rowlands would have been proud of – that the author fully deserves the Prose Medal. “

Eurig Salisbury was born in Cardiff in 1983 and was brought up in Carmarthenshire where he was educated. He graduated in Welsh and Film and Television Studies from Aberystwyth University, before receiving an MPhil on the early works of Guto’r Glyn.

After a period working as a translator for the Welsh Government, and working at the University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, Aberystwyth, where he contributed to three innovative projects on medieval Welsh poetry, before his appointment in 2015 as a lecturer on creative writing at the Department of Welsh and Celtic Studies in Aberystwyth.

See this week’s south editions for the full story and lots more photos from the eisteddfod, in shops now or online by clicking the Digital Editions tab at the top of the page