International recognition for latest book

Academic’s latest book takes top prize in travel writing awards

Hummingbird, the latest novel by academic/writer Tristan Hughes, has won Travel Book of the Year at the Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards.

Hughes’ fourth novel is one of six shortlisted in the Fiction with a sense of place category. The awards recognise seven categories in total including Travel Book of the Year.

This year’s Fiction with a Sense of Place shortlist whisks readers from the blustery landscape of Cumbria to a summer in Paris, from an opulent resort in Montego Bay to a lake in the northern Canadian wilderness, from early 20th century Korea and Japan to a small fishing village in Kerala, conjuring lands some of us could never have imagined.

In his latest novel, Hughes returns to the landscape of his youth in this vivid and poetic coming-of-age story about death, life, and the changes they bring.  Set against the harsh, unforgiving beauty of the forests of northern Ontario, Hummingbird unravels a moving tale of loss, absence and redemption.

Tristan said: "I'm absolutely thrilled and honoured to win this award. Landscape and place have always been hugely important to me in my writing, so it's wonderful to receive a prize for fiction with a sense of place."

Launched in 2015, the Edward Stanford Writing Awards seek to celebrate the best travel writing, and travel writers in the world across genres and formats. Previous winners of the award for outstanding contribution to travel writing include Bill Bryson and Michael Palin.

The 2018 awards was announced at the Stanford’s Travel Writers Festival in London’s Olympia on 1st February.

Born in northern Ontario and brought up on the Welsh island of Ynys Mon, Tristan Hughes continues to teach Creative Writing at Cardiff. Author of the novels Eye Lake, Revenant, and Send My Cold Bones Home, as well as the short story collection, The Tower, the writer-academic is a winner of the Rhys Davies Short Story Prize.

Creative Writing is taught at all levels from the BA in English Literature and Creative Writing through to Masters and Doctorate levels within the School of English, Communication and Philosophy.