Carnegie medal for children’s books goes to a translation for the first time

‘I used to see the word Carnegie on the cover of my favourite books when I was a child’ … Manon Steffan Ros and Jeet Zdung. Photograph: Tom Pilston and Nguyen Kim Long

Welsh writer Manon Steffan Ros has won the 2023 Yoto Carnegie medal, the UK’s most prestigious children’s books award, the first time a translated book has won in its 87-year history.

Judges described Ros’s young adult novel The Blue Book of Nebo, set in a post-apocalyptic Wales, as both “heartbreaking” and “rich with Welsh heritage”. The work, originally published in Welsh, was translated by Ros herself.