Swansea University’s Dylan Thomas Prize is a prestigious award for literary works written by young authors in the English language. On the 2026 longlist is Saba Sams, a Brighton-raised Welsh-based author whose debut novel Gunk has seen great success following its publication in 2025.

The story follows Jules as she works alongside her ex-husband Leon at ‘Gunk’, a grotty nightclub in Brighton. Jules’ life turns sideways when Nim, a free-spirited but distant young woman begins working at the bar. And when Nim falls pregnant, the two women form an unlikely relationship that becomes more intimate and perplexing as the story progresses.

I sat down with Saba to discuss Gunk, her nomination for the Dylan Thomas Prize 2026 and why she decided to relocate to Wales.

First of all, congratulations for Gunk making it onto the 2026 longlist of the Dylan Thomas Prize! What does this nomination mean to you, and why do you think it’s important for young authors to receive this kind of recognition?

For me, the Dylan Thomas Prize is particularly special because I followed it for a long time and used to read the lists. I still read the lists, but it was really inspiring for me when I wanted to be a writer and didn’t really know how. Seeing that you can write while you’re young and that it’s possible, and to have a prize that really pays attention to that is important. Being young, you can feel like nobody is interested in your perspective, because you haven’t been around long enough to know anything. I think that’s especially true with literature because it can feel quite academic as a world, but it is possible to be academic and think deeply and be young. And to be longlisted is obviously so special because what you were once turning to for inspiration, suddenly you’re the thing that can inspire other people, and that’s obviously magical.

This isn’t the first time you’ve been nominated for the Dylan Thomas Prize. In 2023, your short story collection Send Nudes made it to the shortlist. Is there a certain feeling around being nominated twice? Is there more pressure, or do you feel motivated by it?

I wrote Send Nudes with no audience and no book deal, I was just writing short stories. So to have some level of recognition like a prize shortlisting was really unexpected and such a stamp of approval. With Gunk, it’s weirdly been the same, because after Send Nudes I felt like a short story writer. I was really into short stories and that’s always something that I feel like I’ll come back to, but I was contractually obliged to write a novel. I think until this longlisting I wasn’t sure if I had done it. The novel market is much harder to crack, it’s much bigger. I don’t think it’s a harder form, I think short stories are also really hard, but I just wasn’t sure if I fully understood how to do it. So it’s a little boost of confidence, a reminder to keep going. And there’s definitely pressure I think, some days I feel it more and some days I don’t. I prefer to think of my work as all interlinked, and hopefully there’ll just be more and more of it. I hope to continue this conversation with myself rather than bow to pressures that maybe don’t even exist. The thing about pressure is that it’s not going to create better work, you know?

The thing about pressure is that it’s not going to create better work, you know?

You grew up in Brighton and studied in Manchester and London. Is the nightclub ‘Gunk’ modelled after a real place, or is it completely fictional?

It’s a fictional place, but it’s kind of a combination of a club called The Haunt in Brighton, which was open about 15 years ago when I was there. The location of ‘Gunk’ is very specific in my mind, which is where The Haunt was, but the actual club is more like a club in Manchester called Antwerp Mansion, which I used to go to when I was an undergraduate there. I don’t think either of them exist anymore, which is also quite funny, because club culture is dying. I never really talk about this when I talk about Gunk, but it is weird to think that the two clubs that I was thinking about all the time and basing this novel on are gone forever.

Each character has a completely unique experience with motherhood, whether that be with their own mothers or how they feel about becoming a mother themselves. What drew you to write a story with so many different perspectives on motherhood, and why do you think it’s important to showcase such non-nuclear dynamics?

I was really interested in the word ‘mother’ when I was writing Gunk, and how you can mother somebody and be mothered. I was interested in how a mother should be mothered, and just because you’ve become a mother doesn’t mean you lose your right to being mothered. That’s why I created these characters. They have this age gap, so really one should be a mother to the other, as in Jules should mother Nim, but I think it often happens in their relationship the other way round. The thing with Gunk is that I just wanted to look hard at all of these definitions and rules we have around family and relationships: how to love each other, the best way to do it, the right age to do it and who’s allowed to love who. I just wanted to step over the rules and screw it up a bit to see if there’s a way that might make more sense or be more inclusive.

The characters are all flawed, complicated and relatable, and I found the novel incredibly intimate without being particularly sexual. In the current literature world where sexy romance novels are being mass-produced, why did you want to write about ‘normal’ people and their relationships?

It’s interesting thinking about intimacy but not thinking about sex. I guess I wanted to know if I could do that, if it was possible for me. It felt like quite a difficult thing to do. It’s funny because with Send Nudes, people ask me quite a lot about writing sex. I think I had become someone who was expected to write about sex, and I don’t not want to write about sex, but maybe I’m just much more interested in a relationship where sex isn’t the easiest thing to do. With Jules and Nim, I spent a lot of the book wondering if they would have sex or if they would even kiss. That tension drove the book for me, because if they were to have sex or kiss, then their relationship would instantly become defined as whatever that is. And the whole point of the book is that they’re not allowing themselves to be defined. It was kind of cool because it felt like I had tricked myself. I too have subscribed to this thing of romance making a book finished, and then I got out of the trap and saw that they weren’t going to kiss or have sex. It was a cool moment because it felt like the book was finished, I had gotten to where I wanted to be, and where I wanted to be was actually not a sex scene.

Since we are a student publication, I’m interested to know why you think that students, or young women, should add Gunk to their reading lists.

Aww, that’s a nice question. Thinking about love expansively, which is what Gunk is trying to do, is particularly life-changing as a young woman. Because young women are socialised to give everything up in pursuit of romantic love, I think in that sense it could be useful. Also, reading contemporary writing about being the age that you are at that moment is one of the coolest experiences. As much as I like to read widely, there’s something that feels really held about that.

You recently moved to Wales! Has anything particularly struck you about Wales so far?

We moved around four months ago and I just love it here. We live in Monmouthshire and it’s just incredibly beautiful and so green! I don’t see many people, and the people I do see are so friendly. I feel really lucky to live here. I think moving from London to the countryside with my three kids who just needed loads of space has been the most amazing thing. It was quite scary for me to leave London, because London feels like the pulsing heart of the arts. But I’ve got a few paperback events lined up and the Dylan Thomas Prize, and I just feel like there’s so much new culture to discover and engage with. Knowing that London is not the centre of everything is a really cool feeling.

Words by Kitty Connolly

Image credit to Midas PR. Website found here.