Grahame Davies is a Welsh poet, author and lyricist, who has won numerous prizes, including the Wales Book of the Year Award. As a much-sought-after lyricist, he collaborates extensively with composers and wrote the words for the song ‘Sacred Fire’, which, with Sarah Class’s music performed by South African soprano Pretty Yende, was one of the musical highlights of the Coronation of King Charles III in May 2023, and was described by Andrew Lloyd Webber as ‘mesmerising’. .
He is the author of 18 books in Welsh and English, including: The Chosen People, a study of the relationship of the Welsh and Jewish peoples; The Dragon and the Crescent, a study of Wales and Islam; a novel, Everything Must Change, about the French philosopher Simone Weil, and the popular works of psychogeography, Real Wrexham and Real Cambridge.
A native of Coedpoeth near Wrexham, now based in Cardiff and London, he has a degree in English from Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, and a PhD from Cardiff University, where he was an honorary fellow in the department of religious studies.
He was awarded an honorary D.Litt from Anglia Ruskin University, and was Vice-President of Goodenough College, London. In the Queen’s Birthday Honours of 2020, he was appointed Lieutenant of the Royal Victorian Order, and in 2023 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters by Aberdeen University and was made an Honorary Professor of Practice by University of Wales Trinity St David. He travels internationally as a reader and lecturer, carries out numerous high-profile poetry commissions, and collaborates extensively with musical and visual artists.
His poetry has been translated into many languages and has appeared in publications such as: The Times, The Times Literary Supplement, The Guardian, Poetry London, the Literary Review in America, Orbis (#136 Spring 2006), Yearbook of Welsh Writing in English, Absinthe (Michigan, USA, 2007), Kalliope (Germany, 2009), Poetry Review, and Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets series Villanelles (2012). His work is widely anthologised and is on the education syllabus in Wales.
