Owen Sheers Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Plays

Publication Order of Collections

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Publication Order of Faber Drama Books

Publication Order of Laura Bates Collections

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Owen Sheers was born in Suva, Fiji in the year 1974, and brought up in London as well as Abergavenny, where his parents returned to after he was born and he lived most of his life. He is a Welsh playwright, author, and poet. He was educated at King Henry VIII School Abergavenny, Oxford, New College, and the University of East Anglia. He is a Professor in Creativity at Swansea University. Owen has a wife, named Katherine, who is from Abergavenny, and together, they have a daughter.

“The Green Hollow”, which is a film poem, was nominated for a Grierson and a BAFTA.

Sheers’ debut novel, called “Resistance”, was released in the year 2007, and has been translated into eight languages.

His novel “I Saw a Man” came from Sheers seeing the striking image of a guy easing his neighbors’ door open, which came into his mind fully formed. This is the first time that this had ever happened for him. It gave him quite a few questions. Like: who is the guy, where is he at in his life, and why would he enter like that?

When he began working on it, he felt the idea of family as being quite distant from him. He got to the ten thousand word mark three times before starting over. By this time, he was finally able to find the right voice for the story, with the possibility of the domestic getting closer.

Owen’s stammer in his younger years helped, in some ways, to him becoming a poet. He was always interested in writing, but having a stammer made him aware of words and language. If there was a word he was unable to say, he would find another one. He felt relief when he could put words on paper that he was unable to say out loud.

At one point in time, he found it tough to speak in public, but actually became fond of going to festivals. He says that they are fantastic places to go and meet other writers, and it has had so many ideas that have grown out of his experiences. Owen says that it is also a privilege to meet up with readers or anyone who has chosen to take time to read his books.

“Resistance” is the first stand alone novel, which was released in the year 2007. The year is 1944. After Russia’s fall and D-Day’s failure, a German counterattack his British soil. In just a month, half of Britain has been occupied. Churchill has fled to Canada, and the seat of British government has fled to Worcester. Only a network of British resistance cells is the only thing left to defy the German army.

With this backdrop, the novel begins with a twenty-six year old farmer’s wife named Sarah Lewis, who wakes to find her husband, Tom, has vanished. She is not the only one, all the other women in the Welsh border valley of Olchon wake up and find their husbands are gone. With this unexplained and sudden absence, the women regroup as their own isolated, and all-female community and just wait and hope for news.

Later on, a German patrol shows up in the valley, and the purpose of their mission is a mystery. Severe winter forces the two groups together, there is a fragile mutual dependency that develops. Sarah starts a faltering acquaintance with the commanding officer of the patrol, Albrecht Wolfram, and he tells her the purpose of the patrol. While the pressure of war beyond starts making its way to this isolated community, the fragile state of harmony is threatened more and more.

The book is like meditation: subtle and quiet, yet very powerful. It is one of those books that is going to linger inside readers’ minds for some time. It is a beautifully written story. The characters in the story really bring the book to life and see the reality of the situation through their eyes and how they deal with it.

“The Gospel of Us” is the third stand alone novel, which was released in the year 2012. As the town waits for the Company Man’s arrival, a stranger appears in the windswept dunes, singing some songs to the sea. This is just the start of three days of the unearthly events in Port Talbot that see the dead rise from the walls of some underpass and the Teacher soothe a suicide bomber.

Sheers takes characters from different bible stories and makes them into the denizens of a South Wales town. He also makes the story matter that much more. It is a tour-de-force for quite a few readers, who found it a tough book to put down for very long.

“I Saw a Man” is the fourth stand alone novel, which was released in the year 2015. The event that changed everyone’s lives happened in June on a Sunday afternoon, just minutes after Michael Turner, who thought The Nelsons’ house was empty, stepped through their back door.

After he suddenly loses his wife, Michael Turner moves off to London and soon develops a close friendship with the Nelson family next door. Samantha, Josh, and their two young daughters are starting to represent everything that Michael fears he may now never have. Things like stability, intimacy, kids, and a family home.

Despite these feelings, the new friendship appears to offer the prospect of healing, but there is a catastrophic event that changes everything. Michael is left to bear a burden of grief along with a secret he has to keep, but the truth is only something that can be kept at bay for just so long.

This book is a brilliant exploration of guilt, violence, and attempted redemption and is written with the same grip and pace of a thriller. Owen takes the reader from close observation of the domestic sphere directly to some of the most important dilemmas and questions of the contemporary world. This is an author that has the voice, style, and storytelling chops to stand next to the likes of McEwan.