Caleb Azumah Nelson wins £20,000 Dylan Thomas prize for Small Worlds

Caleb Azumah Nelson, who has won the prize for writers under the age of 39, the age Thomas was when he died. Photograph: Phil Fisk/The Observer

British-Ghanaian author Caleb Azumah Nelson has won this year’s Swansea University Dylan Thomas prize for his second novel Small Worlds, which judges described as “symphonic” and “viscerally moving”.

Azumah Nelson, 30, was awarded the £20,000 prize at ceremony on Thursday in Swansea, the home city of the poet Dylan Thomas. The prize is given to a writer aged 39 or under in memory of Thomas, who died at that age.