Wales Book of the Year Wales Book of the Year The Wales Book of the Year is a Welsh literary award given annually to the best Welsh and English language works in the fields of fiction and literary criticism by Welsh or Welsh interest authors. Established in 1992, the awards are currently administered by Literature Wales, and supported by the Arts Council of Wales, Welsh Government and the Welsh Books Council. The longlist of ten works in each language is published in April and the shortlist of three works in each language at the Hay Festival in May. The winners are announced in June or
History of the Welsh language However, although Welsh is the daily language in many parts of Wales, English is universally understood. Further, overall figures may be misleading and it might be argued that the density of welsh speakers (which, if high, leads to a thriving welsh culture) is an equally important statistic. Put another way, were 50,000 additional welsh speakers to be concentrated in areas where welsh is spoken by at least 50% of the population, this would be much more important to the sustainability of the welsh language than the same number dispersed in Cardiff, Newport and Swansea cities. In the 2011 census it