The autumn edition of New Welsh Reader includes exclusive extracts from entries to the New Welsh Writing Awards 2016: University of South Wales Prize for Travel Writing including the winning essay ‘Bush Meat: As My Mother Told Me’ by Mandy Sutter, which depicts a Nigerian domestic scene where subtle and interdependent racial and class issues are seething under a tight lid. ‘The Rains of Titikaka’ by John Harrison recounts the rise and fall of the pre-Columbian city of Tiwanaku in Bolivia, ‘Stranger Shores’ by Karen Philips looks at the underground (and underwater) currents of Mayan culture in the Yucatan, Mexico; ‘Seven Days: A Pyrenean Trek’ by Nathan Llywelyn Munday depicts the highs and lows of the grand narrative on trek through the Pyrenees; the etiquette of the Trans-Siberian station pitstop is narrated in ‘Moscow to Beijing on Train Number Four’ by Julie Owen Moylan and ‘No Situation is Permanent’ by Hannah Garrard follows the progress of a pioneering school from its refugee-camp origins in Ghana.

There is also an exclusive extract from Cynan Jones’ new novel Cove (Granta) publishing in November 2016. Out at sea, in a sudden storm, a man is struck by lightning. When he wakes, injured and adrift on a kayak, his memory of who he is and how he came to be there is all but shattered. Now he must pit himself against the pain and rely on his instincts to get back to shore, and to the woman he dimly senses waiting for his return. With its taut narrative and its wincingly visceral portrait of a man locked in an uneven struggle with the forces of nature, this is a powerful new work from one of the most distinctive voices in British fiction.

In addition there is new poetry from Wales Book of the Year 2016 category winner Philip Gross , Argentinian poet Daniel Samoilovich, Chilean poet Malu Urriola, (both translated by Richard Gwyn), Ian McLachlan, Syed Shehzar Mukkarim Doja, Agatha Abu Shehab and CM Buckland.

New Welsh Reader editor Gwen Davies talks through the edition highlights:

New Welsh Reader poetry submissions editor Amy McCauley explains why she chose Philip Gross' poems:

Cynan Jones will be reading from Cove at Chapter’s First Thursday on 3 November at Chapter Arts Centre in Cardiff.

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