The following are translated extracts from former Plaid Cymru Dwyfor-Meirionnydd MP Elfyn Llwyd’s new autobiography, Betws a’r Byd. One morning a pack of papers arrived in the Dolgellau Office – they were very revealing and showed that Welsh Office staff, under the supervision of John Redwood, had prevented staff from […]
Sarah Tanburn Hester Piozzi is the eponymous subject of a new addition to the Writers of Wales series by Michael John Franklin, a welcome survey of the life of an underrated woman who kept Welshness close to her heart through a long life of doublings and change. Piozzi, to use […]
Jon Gower When the former England captain Dylan Hartley’s book ‘Hurt’ appeared during the summer it portrayed a young man so wracked with pain that he couldn’t put the bins out. This follows other memoirs by warrior-class players such as Sam Warburton who retired at a young age because his […]
Rebecca F. John Hilary Byrd is awkward, a misfit. Somewhat by accident, it seems, he has ended up on the plains of India, where he finds the weather not to his tastes and flees into the hills, seeking cooler air – somewhere he can breathe. In Ooty, a southern hill […]
Jon Gower This righteous anger-stoked anthology takes its title from a long poem by Patrick Jones called ‘Guerrilla Tapestry’ which first appeared almost a quarter of a century ago but has now been updated ‘to bear witness to today’s world and the new threads.’ The hallmark staccato bark, looping repetitions […]
Sarah Tanburn Cwmderwen is one of those narrow, steep-sided valleys rich in stones and scrub. The Owen family are proud tenants of twenty-four acres, one rood and eight perches. Led by patriarch Thomas, they work hard on the small farm in the week and pray hard in chapel on a […]
Jon Gower This novel takes us to a land blasted by pestilence, as the Black Death casts its dark cloak over Britain. It is hard and harsh mid-winter as Martin, a ‘collyer’ in the Forest of Dean tries to deal with the death of his father, who has passed away […]
The novelist and poet Emyr Humphreys, described as one of Wales’ greatest cultural heroes, has died at the age of 101. Regarded as one of Wales’ most important English language writers, he died at his home in Llanfairpwll. He published over twenty novels, including A Toy Epic (1958) and Outside […]
Jon Gower As if getting your head around the scale and complexity of one universe wasn’t enough this cosmic thriller is set in two, with a grey tunnel of a portal that appears in such places as the CERN particle accelerator linking both ‘verses. And if you find the idea […]
The artist behind the unbuilt Tryweryn monument, John Meirion Morris, has died age 84. The sculptor from Llanuwchllyn, near Bala, was one of Wales’ most prominent and also known for his busts of Ray Gravell, Gwynfor Evans and others. He had hoped to place his monument to Tryweryn on the […]
