WINNER of #IDTP16 is @maxjohnporter for 'Grief is the Thing with Feathers' @FaberBooks CONGRATULATIONS! pic.twitter.com/XKSIsyTOfn

— Dylan Thomas Prize (@dylanthomprize) May 14, 2016

 

 

LONDON — Writer Max Porter has won the Dylan Thomas Prize for young literary talents with his poetic look at loss, “Grief is the Thing With Feathers.”

 

The London-based Porter was given the 30,000 pound ($43,000) award Saturday at a ceremony in Swansea, Wales.

 

Named for the late Welsh poet, the prize is open to fiction by English-language writers aged 39 or under. Thomas — author of rambunctious, lyrical works including “Under Milk Wood” — was 39 when he died in 1953.

 

The winning book, Porter’s debut, is a work of poetic fiction inspired partly by the poems of Ted Hughes and partly by the death of Porter’s father when he was a child. It focuses on two young boys devastated by the death of their mother, and their family’s journey to healing with the help of Crow, a mysterious trickster figure.

 

Cultural historian Dai Smith, who chaired the judging panel, said the book “transforms the ordinary through an extraordinary feat of imaginative prose.” TVJ