Books by Owen Sheers

A meditation on war, memory and the nature of time, Mametz, inspired by the writings of David Jones and Llewelyn Wyn Griffith, tells the story of the 38th Welsh Division’s attack on Mametz Wood during the Somme offensive of 1916. Set within the context of a contemporary battlefield tour and moving between the present day, the 1950s and WWI, the play transports an audience into the frontline trenches and the intimate fears, hopes and loves of the young soldiers risked and gave their lives in their attempt to take the wood.“The finest commemoration of the First World War centenary I’ve seen to-date, this deserves a much longer life.” Dominic Cavendish, DAILY TELEGRAPH“an astounding exploration – melding narrative and poetry – of the Battle of Mametz Wood” Carolyn Hitt, WESTERN MAIL

Pink Mist is a verse-drama about three young friends from Bristol who join the army and are deployed to the post 9/11 conflict in Afghanistan. Within a short space of time all three return to the women in their lives - a wife, a mother, a girlfriend - all of whom must now share the psychological and physical aftershocks of their service. Drawing upon interviews with soldiers and their families, Pink Mist illuminates the timeless human cost of war and its all too often devastating effect upon the young lives pulled into its orbit.

In 1966 a coal slag heap collapsed on a school in south Wales, killing 144 people, most of them children. Perhaps most significantly: what is Aberfan like today? The Green Hollow is a historical story with a deeply urgent contemporary resonance;

The event that changed all of their lives happened on a Saturday afternoon in June, just minutes after Michael Turner - thinking the Nelsons' house was empty - stepped through their back door.After the sudden loss of his wife, Michael Turner moves to London and quickly develops a close friendship with the Nelson family next door. Josh, Samantha and their two young daughters seem to represent everything Michael fears he may now never have: intimacy, children, stability and a family home. Despite this, the new friendship at first seems to offer the prospect of healing, but then a catastrophic event changes everything. Michael is left bearing a burden of grief and a secret he must keep, but the truth can only be kept at bay for so long.Moving from London and New York to the deserts of Nevada, I Saw a Man is a brilliant exploration of violence, guilt and attempted redemption, written with the pace and grip of a thriller. Owen Sheers takes the reader from close observation of the domestic sphere to some of the most important questions and dilemmas of the contemporary world.

Welcome to our war The Two Worlds of Charlie F. is a soldier's view of service, injury and recovery. Moving from the war in Afghanistan, through the dream world of morphine-induced hallucinations to the physio rooms of Headley Court, the play explores the consequences of injury, both physical and psychological, and its effects on others as the soldiers fight to win the new battle for survival at home. Drawn from the personal experience of the wounded, injured and sick Service personnel involved, Owen Sheers's The Two Worlds of Charlie F. premiered at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, London, in January 2012 and toured nationally that summer.

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.

This edition has been fully updated to include the 2013 Six Nations and the British and Irish Lions Tour.What does rugby mean to Wales? Where does the heart of Welsh rugby lie? In Calon, Owen Sheers takes a personal journey into a sport that defines a nation. Drawing on interviews and unprecedented access with players and WRU coaching staff, Calon presents an intimate portrait of a national team in the very best tradition of literary sports writing. At the 2011 Rugby World Cup a young Welsh side captained by the 22-year-old Sam Warburton, captured the imagination of the rugby-watching world. Exhibiting the grit and brilliance of generations past, an ill-fated semi-final ended in heartbreak. But a fledgling squad playing with the familiarity of brothers had sent out an electrifying message of hope: could this be a third golden generation of Welsh rugby? It was with this question hanging in the air that Owen Sheers took up his position as Writer in Residence for the Welsh Rugby Union. Calon is the document of a year spent at the heart of Welsh rugby; the inside story of a 6 Nations campaign that galvanised a nation and ended in Grand Slam success for the third time in 8 years.

This novella by Owen Sheers retells the Passion of Christ, based on the author''s groundbreaking National Theatre of Wales play starring Michael Sheen and performed over three days in Port Talbot.

The finest commemoration of the First World War centenary I've seen to-date, this deserves a much longer life.' Dominic Cavendish, Daily TelegraphMametz by Owen Sheers was premiered by National Theatre Wales in June 2014.

Introduced and selected by the poet-presenter Owen Sheers, A Poet's Guide to Britain is a major poetry anthology that ties in with the BBC series of the same name.Owen Sheers passionately believes that poems, and particularly poems of place, not only affect us as individuals, but can have the power to mark and define a collective experience - our identities, our country, our land. He has chosen six powerful poems, all personal favourites, and all poems that have become part of the way we see our landscape. The anthology follows a similar format to the BBC series itself, while also offering paper chains of poems about the landscape and nature of Britain, transcripts of contemporary poet interviews, and a short introduction to each lead poem.

Unicorns, Almost portrays the short life of World War II poet Keith Douglas, from his childhood through four engagements to his fighting in the Western desert, his accelerated education as a poet and his early death three days after the Normandy D-Day landings at the age of twenty-four.

1944. After the fall of Russia and the failed D-Day landings, half of Britain is occupied . . . Young farmer's wife Sarah Lewis wakes to find her husband has disappeared, along with all of the men from her remote Welsh village.A German patrol arrives in the valley, the purpose of their mission a mystery. Sarah begins a faltering acquaintance with the patrol's commanding officer, Albrecht, and it is to her that he reveals the purpose of his mission - to claim an extraordinary medieval art treasure that lies hidden in the valley. But as the pressure of the war beyond presses in on this isolated community, this fragile state of harmony is increasingly threatened.

En roman - og et psykologisk drama - om kærlighed, tab og hemmeligheders lumske natur. Efter sin kones tragiske død i Pakistan flytter Michael Turner til London og udvikler hurtigt et nært venskab med familien Nelson, der bor i nabohuset. Josh, Samantha og deres to døtre repræsenterer alt, Michael frygter aldrig selv at opnå: fortrolighed, nærhed, børn, stabilitet – et hjem. I begyndelsen synes det nye venskab da også at have en helbredende virkning på ham, men så – en lørdag eftermiddag i juni - indtræffer en katastrofe, der ændrer alt. Michael er nu ladt tilbage med en byrde af sorg og en hemmelighed han må holde skjult, men hvor længe? Jeg så et menneske er en spændingsmættet roman om kærlighed, tab og hemmeligheders lumske natur, et mørkt og gribende studie i brutalitet, sorg og skyld.