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 flooding of Capel Celyn (Holly Chapel), a Welsh-speaking community of historic significance. Despite universal and bi-partisan objections by Welsh politicians (35 out of 36 Welsh MPs opposed the bill, and one abstained) the bill was passed in 1957. The events surrounding the flooding highlighted the status of the language in the 1950s and 1960s. In 1962 Saunders Lewis gave a radio speech entitled (The Fate of the Language) in which he predicted the extinction of the Welsh language unless direct action was taken. Lewis was responding to the 1961 census, which showed a decrease in the number of Welsh speakers