Pink Mist

Winner of Wales Book of the Year Pink Mist is a verse-drama about three young soldiers from Bristol who are deployed to Afghanistan. School friends still in their teens, Arthur, Hads and Taff each have their own reasons for enlisting. Within a short space of time they return to the women in their lives (a mother, a wife, a girlfriend), all of whom must now share the psychological and physical aftershocks of their service. A work of great dramatic power, documentary integrity and emotional intensity, Pink Mist uses everyday yet heightened speech to excavate the human cost of modern warfare. Drawing upon interviews with soldiers and their families, as well as ancient texts such as the medieval Welsh poem Y Gododdin, it is the first extended lyric narrative to emerge from the devastating conflict in Afghanistan.

Owen Sheers has written two collections of poetry, The Blue Book and Skirrid Hill (Somerset Maugham Award). His non-fiction includes The Dust Diaries (Welsh Book of the Year, 2005) and Calon: A Journey to the Heart of Welsh Rugby. His novel Resistance has been translated into ten languages and was made into a film in 2011. His plays include The Passion and The Two Worlds of Charlie F. (Amnesty International Freedom of Expression Award). Owen wrote and presented BBC Four's A Poet's Guide to Britain. He has been a NYPL Cullman Fellow, Writer in Residence for the Wordsworth Trust and Artist in Residence for the Welsh Rugby Union.