New novel depicts Welsh town’s artistic scene

Independent Welsh press Melin Bapur has published a new original novel, Llanllenorion by Mary Burdett-Jones, which has been described as conveying “a completely new voice and perspective in the Welsh language”.

The Welsh language novel describes a seaside university town not unlike recently-designated UNESCO City of Literature Aberystwyth.

There is a range of characters: a publisher who was brought up in London, a scholar who is completely dedicated to his work, an artist and an actress, among others. Turning the pages we learn about the relationship of these characters to each other in the past and a change in perspective as we read about the dreams of the main character.

Llanllenorion is a work Mary has been working on for about a decade. Professor Bobi Jones saw an early draft and described it as “a very substantial work. It draws the reader forward by the unexpected strangeness and its varied course.”

This is Mary Burdett-Jones’s first novel, but she has already published a volume of her poetry in Welsh, Lluniadau (2020), together with a volume of Welsh translations of the German poems of Selma Merbaum, who died in the Holocaust.

Poetry plays a leading role in Llanllenorion as well, as a number of Mary’s poems and translations are woven into the text in a unique way.

Mary said: “ The title of the book for years was ‘Symphony’ until I remembered the title of a number of essays on the literary figures of Llanidloes by the mid-nineteenth-century journalist Matthew Lewis on whom my husband Philip Henry Jones has done research.

“They described a town where there was a thriving Welsh-language literary life, ‘Llanllenorion’, literally ‘Town of Litterateurs’.”

Adam Pearce, editor and owner of Melin Bapur said: “It is a privilege to have this important work entrusted to us, a work which is, in my opinion, quite unique in Welsh literature. I have never come across a book which combines styles and even literary forms in this way.

“Llanllenorion is a challenging, experimental work, but it is a testimony to Mary’s obvious talent as a novelist – and as a poet! It’s not a ‘difficult’ novel’. On the contrary: the story grips you straight away. It’s incredible to think that this is her first novel – but we hope not the last!”

Llanllenorion is available now from www.melinbapur.cymru for £9.99+P&P. Also newly available this week from Melin Bapur are John Morris-Jones’s Caniadau (£9.99) and Gwenffrwd’s Syniadau ar y Môr (£8.99).