Lisa Sheppard wins Gwerddon Award

Dr Lisa Sheppard from Cardiff University School of Welsh has won this year’s Gwerddon Award.

The Gwerddon Award is presented every other year to the author of the best article published in Gwerddon (a multidisciplinary journal from the Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol) in the last two years.

This year, Lisa’s article - Troi Dalen “Arall”: Ail-ddehongli’r berthynas rhwng cymunedau Cymraeg a Saesneg de Cymru mewn dwy nofel ddiweddar yng ngoleuni ffigwr yr “arall” – came out on top.

Lisa, a lecturer at the School of Welsh, said: “It was an unexpected honour to discover that I had been awarded this year’s Gwerddon Prize. I would like to thank Gwerddon’s editorial team for its support and Cardiff University’s Dr Huw Williams, for inviting me to contribute to this special and important edition on Philosophical Relationships. My article discussed how contemporary Welsh novels (Catrin Dafydd’s Y Tiwniwr Piano and Christopher Meredith’s The Book of Idiots) portray Wales’ Welsh and English speakers as ‘other’, as different or strangers.

“In the current climate, with the Brexit process progressing, it is important to understand how the images we see around us also present some social groups as ‘other’ and outside of the national ‘norm’, and how the presence of an indigenous minority language like Welsh effects these processes.

“I have to thank Gwerddon for the opportunity to discuss these important matter through the Welsh medium and consider how our bilingual experiences in modern Wales can help to redefine our relationship with other minority or peripheral groups in Wales and Britain.”

Gwerddon’s editor, Dr Anwen Jones, said: “We offer our warm congratulations to Lisa on winning this year’s award. This article was chosen, from a range of excellent articles, because of the strength of its argument and the quality of the academic evidence it presented. It is also of interest to those outside of the literary and philosophical field. Through its combination of these elements, the article is a shining example of Gwerddon’s objective.”

Anwen added: “Thank you to Lisa and all of the authors who have published with Gwerddon over the past two years and who continue to present their work. We are eager to receive original and interesting scholarly work from all research fields.

“We are also thankful to The Learned Society of Wales for once again sponsoring this award.”

Dr Dylan Foster Evans, Head of the School of Welsh, said: “I would like to congratulate Lisa on this special honour and the much deserved attention her innovative research has received. Lisa’s work sheds new light on bilingualism, multiculturalism and identify in modern Wales. These are significant themes that help us to understand the Welsh experience today and consider how we can shape the experiences of the communities of the future.”

Lisa’s work is an example of the way in which the School of Welsh at Cardiff University is dealing with the development of language, society and identify in contemporary Wales through research and teaching of the highest standard.

The School offers a variety of degree programmes of the highest academic quality and which are relevant to modern Wales.