The Edge of the Shoal

The winning story from BBC National Short Story Award 2017.

Cynan Jones's story of survival on the seas is read by Jamie Parker.

Cynan Jones is the author of five novels, The Long Dry, Everything I Found on the Beach, The Dig, Bird, Blood, Snow and Cove. His work is widely translated, and short stories have appeared on BBC Radio 4 and in a number of anthologies and publications including Granta Magazine and The New Yorker. He also scripted an episode of the television crime drama Hinterland. He has won a Betty Trask Award, the Wales Book of the Year Fiction Prize, and a Jerwood Fiction Prize, and a chapter of The Dig was shortlisted for the Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award in 2013. His novel Cove was longlisted for the Europese Literatuurprijs (in the Netherlands).

The five stories in the BBC National Short Story Award 2017 reflect an energy and excitement about short fiction from a generation of the UK's most dynamic, contemporary writers.

Abridged by Julian Wilkinson

Produced by Simon Richardson.