Catrin Kean is a Welsh writer best known for her debut novel, Salt (2020), which won the Wales Book of the Year in 2021. Writing under the name Catrin Clarke, she also received a BAFTA Cymru award for screenwriting in 2003 for the BBC Wales drama Belonging.
Catrin Kean was born in Wales and has Welsh, Irish, English, and Bajan heritage. Her early career included writing short film scripts and radio plays. "My first paid job was in radio," she recalls.
Kean is a scriptwriter with credits in film, television, and radio. Her work includes episodes for Casualty, Mistresses, and Wolfblood. Despite her success in screenwriting, Kean always had a passion for prose. "I was always writing prose in the background," she says.
Her short stories appeared in Riptide Journal, Bridge House Anthologies, The Ghastling, and Syncopation Journal. From 2016 to 2018, Kean applied for the Hay Festival Writers at Work scheme for emerging writers.
Kean's debut novel, Salt, was published by Gomer Press in 2020. The book is a historical narrative about her Welsh great-grandmother Ellen and her great-grandfather Samuel, a ship's cook from Barbados, who met and married in 1878. The novel explores themes of racism, class, and British hegemony.
Salt won three awards at the 2021 Wales Book of the Year Awards: the Rhys Davies Trust Fiction Award, the Wales Arts Review People's Choice Award, and the overall Wales Book of the Year Award.
Kean's second novel, Lace (2024), continues her exploration of her family's history. It tells the story of Mary, a young girl left in a Dublin orphanage after her father's death.
Catrin Kean is based in Cardiff and lives in the Garw Valley with her partner and three ridgeback dogs.
Photo credit: IG @catrinkean
Catrin Kean was born in Wales and has Welsh, Irish, English, and Bajan heritage. Her early career included writing short film scripts and radio plays. "My first paid job was in radio," she recalls.
Kean is a scriptwriter with credits in film, television, and radio. Her work includes episodes for Casualty, Mistresses, and Wolfblood. Despite her success in screenwriting, Kean always had a passion for prose. "I was always writing prose in the background," she says.
Her short stories appeared in Riptide Journal, Bridge House Anthologies, The Ghastling, and Syncopation Journal. From 2016 to 2018, Kean applied for the Hay Festival Writers at Work scheme for emerging writers.
Kean's debut novel, Salt, was published by Gomer Press in 2020. The book is a historical narrative about her Welsh great-grandmother Ellen and her great-grandfather Samuel, a ship's cook from Barbados, who met and married in 1878. The novel explores themes of racism, class, and British hegemony.
Salt won three awards at the 2021 Wales Book of the Year Awards: the Rhys Davies Trust Fiction Award, the Wales Arts Review People's Choice Award, and the overall Wales Book of the Year Award.
Kean's second novel, Lace (2024), continues her exploration of her family's history. It tells the story of Mary, a young girl left in a Dublin orphanage after her father's death.
Catrin Kean is based in Cardiff and lives in the Garw Valley with her partner and three ridgeback dogs.
Photo credit: IG @catrinkean
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