Author Caryl Lewis is a Welsh literary giant. Three times Wales Book of the Year winner, she writes in Welsh and English; for adults and children. It’s a delight and a privilege to welcome her to this year’s Monty Lit Fest to talk about her writing.

Caryl’s latest English language novel will also be hot off the presses. In Bitter Honey, as Hannah prepares for the funeral of her husband of fifty years, she discovers eleven letters he has left her, each an examination of an aspect of their marriage. As the letters unfold, they reveal a devastating secret that will make Hannah have to re-evaluate her whole life.

It promises to be another tour de force. Don’t miss this chance to meet one of Wales’s greatest literary talents

Caryl Lewis is a multi-award-winning Welsh novelist, children’s writer, playwright and screenwriter. Her breakthrough novel Martha, Jac a Sianco (2004) is widely regarded as a modern classic of Welsh literature and sits on the Welsh curriculum. The film adaptation – with a screenplay by Lewis herself – went on to win six Welsh BAFTAS and the Spirit of the Festival Award at the 2010 Celtic Media Festival. Lewis’s other screenwriting work includes the BBC/S4C thrillers Hinterland and Hidden. She is a visiting lecturer in Creative Writing at Cardiff University and lives with her family on a farm near Aberystwyth. 2022’s Drift was her debut novel in the English language, followed in 2025 by Bitter Honey.