Book Review: Y Cyfan a Fu Rhyngom Ni by Iestyn Tyne

Jon Gower

We continue our reviews of books shortlisted for the Wales Book of the Year award for 2026. This time we consider one of the titles in the Welsh language non-fiction category.

You can vote for the People’s Choice here. 

One of the pleasures of becoming a writer long in the tooth is seeing not one but two generations of young Welsh writers making their mark and making sense of the world. Iestyn Tyne is one of those: early promise has certainly turned into proper achievement and this latest volume is proof positive of that.

Detective work

In his latest book we follow young poet Tyne as he turns literary detective to tell the story of fellow poet Edward Prosser Rhys, the volume appearing just over a century since the journalist and editor won the National Eisteddfod Crown in 1924 with his controversial poem ‘Atgof’ (Memory.) It is no forensic analysis of the work or fulsome biography of the poet but rather a deft and insightful gathering of insights and intimations. As Tyne himself suggests, he explores the gap between two men, indeed considers that gap fel rhan o’r stori, as part of the story. 

Significant places

Tyne deftly mixes archival research with visits to significant places in Prosser Rhys’ life, such as Mynydd Bychan in the heart of Ceredigion, a Welsh speaking community where poets were once as common as the white blossoms of bog cotton. Indeed, there’s a memorial to a group of them above a high lake in the area. 

Good travel writing

As good travel writers do, Tyne takes his readers along with him. In Mynydd Bychan Tyne notes the sad look of chapel windows where the congregation have long passed on and visits Prosser’s old home, bought by an English couple who have never heard of him. Tyne also takes in Pontypool, where Prosser Rhys lived and worked. Meanwhile, writing about Twthill in Caernarfon links them both directly as Tyne now lives there now just as his subject once did and they both once lived in Aberystwyth. Another link is illness: Tyne’s diabetes and Rhys’ consumption, which kept him at home for three years and eventually curtailed his life.

Queer love story

At its heart Y Cyfan a Fu Rhyngom Ni is a queer love story, tracing the long relationship between Prosser Rhys and Morris T. Williams, who was married to the so-called Queen of the Short Story Kate Roberts. The complexity of the relationship is there in the book’s title which can mean everything that happened between us or it can also mean everything that stood between us, all the barriers that were put in the way.

Wandering form

Tyne’s absorbing volume has all the apparatus of psychogeography, that wandering form in which the writer is a flaneur, often following instinct as much as a path. So we have digressions and diversions, pondering LGBQT+ writing in Wales and the toxic masculinity of Welsh. There are considerations of censorship and bias, probing roots and the nature of upbringing, exploring home and exile and investigating the complexities of memory and identity.  

Psychogeography is a way of exploring pioneered by another Welshman, Arthur Machen who explored a city and its outer limits in his London Adventures, which connects in turn with one of the form’s most sure-footed exponents, Iain Sinclair, who was brought up in Maesteg.

Poetic footsteps

Like Tyne, Sinclair also followed in the footsteps of poets, such as John Clare in his Edge of Orison: Traces of John Clare’s Journey Out of Essex. They both find new resonance in the poet’s words by matching the metre of the verse to the rhythm of their journeying steps. And they both share the joy of discovering new material, in Tyne’s case a rich cache of correspondence including a letter written by Williams to Prosser Rhys from his death bed in Tonypandy.

The telling of the story in Y Cyfan a Fu Rhyngom Ni is particularly graced by having a poet redact the tale, who can pause and derive meaning from the poetic milestones along the way and pause to consider other poets such as the rather forgotten illustrator and journalist Myfanwy Haycock from Pontypool. The route Tyne takes is far from straightforward as is his discursive style, sometimes looping back, or switching from literary criticism to beautiful bursts of his own writing, or following, surely a side-path but always doing so to the reader’s benefit. 

Y Cyfan a Fu Rhyngom Ni: Ar Lwybrau ‘Atgof’ Prosser Rhys by Iestyn Tyne is published by Gwasg y Bwthyn and is available from all good bookshops.

You can vote for the People’s Choice award here.