We are delighted to announce that Tessa McWatt's book, The Snag:A Mother, a Forest, and Wild Grief, has been named the 2025 Guyana Prize for Literature Best Book of Non-Fiction.
19 August, 2026
The Snag by Tessa McWatt wins Guyana Prize for Literature's Non-Fiction award
The Guyana Prize for Literature provides a major platform for recognising literary excellence and encouraging the development of new generations of Guyanese writers.
Hosted in Georgetown on 07 August 2026, this year's award celebrations brought together established and emerging writers from across literary genres, with awards for fiction, poetry, non-fiction, drama and youth categories. The ceremony also featured an address from the Guyanese Prime Minister, Brigadier (Ret’d) Mark Phillips.
This is the second award of the year for Tessa, having recently won the 2026 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, as well as the 2026 Non-Fiction prize for the same award.
Tessa McWatt is the author of seven novels, two books for young people, and two nonfiction titles. Her work has been nominated for the Governor General’s Award and the Toronto Book Awards, and won the Eccles British Library Award 2018. McWatt is Professor of Creative Writing at UEA and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Congratulations again Tessa!
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The Snag
Winner of the 2026 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature
Every day, we hear about and experience griefs, large and small, in our families, friendships, communities, and worldwide. The grief of a loved one passing. The grief of a way of life ceasing to exist. The grief of global pandemic, war, climate collapse.
In The Snag, the acclaimed author of Shame On Me, Tessa McWatt, takes on personal and collective grief, and climate change, in her much-anticipated second nonfiction book.
As her mother’s dementia advances and it becomes apparent that she can no longer live independently, Tessa considers griefs personal and political, and finds solace in trees. She asks: How do we grieve? And: What can we learn from nature and those whose communities are rooted in nature about how to grieve — and how to live?
From the newest seedling, to the oldest snag in the forest, there is meaning to be found in every stage of a tree’s life, all of which contribute to a thriving forest community; it is in this metaphor that Tessa begins to find answers to her questions about how to live (for each other), how to grieve (radically), and how to die (with love and connection).
The Snag is an essential book about living and dancing and singing and praying, even in the face of unimaginable sadness, and in this way, growing together and supporting one another, like the trees in the forest.
Tessa McWatt
Tessa McWatt is the author of seven novels, two books for young people, and one nonfiction book. Her work has been nominated for the Governor General’s Award and the Toronto Book Awards, and won the OCM Bocas Prize. She is a winner of the Eccles British Library Award 2018. McWatt is Professor of Creative Writing at UEA.