Welsh-American author publishes ‘Groundbreaking’ novel

Stephen Price

A Welsh-American academic is publishing his debut English novel, An Atheist Christian Gunslinger, as a creative response to the rise of the MAGA movement in his native United States.

North-Wales based Jerry Hunter is originally from Cincinnati, Ohio, but has lived in Wales since the 1990s and since 2003 has been at Bangor University where he is currently a Professor of Welsh.

He has published six novels in Welsh and a number of non-fiction and academic works. One of the major voices in Welsh literature of the twenty-first century, he is past recipient of the Prose Medal at the National Eisteddfod and the Wales Book of the Year award; however An Atheist Christian Gunslinger is his first published work of fiction in English – or rather, in ‘Mɘrɘkan’.

A work of dystopian fiction that takes place after ‘The End of Elections’, the novel is set in a bleak vision of rural America at an unspecified point in the future where everything is run by The Company and The State.

The protagonist Seth Hibard, a sludge farmer, has only received a rudimentary education. While he doesn’t share his wife’s strong faith, he has a strong sense of right and wrong, and when the authorities turn a blind eye to the persecution of some migrant workers he is forced to choose between doing nothing and taking matters into his own hands.

Whilst An Atheist Christian Gunslinger is something of a departure for Hunter, being his first novel in English, it bears some similarities to his 2014 post-apocalyptic Welsh language novel Ebargofiant (‘Oblivion’), widely perceived at the time to be a revolutionary work in the language.

Both novels coin a new, non-standard orthography based on a specific dialect: the Welsh of Caernarfonshire in the case of Ebargofiant, and a combination of English dialects found in Appalachia and the southern United States in the case of An Atheist Christian Gunslinger.

‘I kaint tel yu how bad it got, bɘt it got reel bad shurnɘf.’

“Seth’s story is one that can’t be separated from the language used to tell it,” explains Hunter. “Using a unique kind of writing in this way forces the reader to really get inside the mind of a character.

“It also helps situate the reader soundly in the world I’ve created. Among other things, it’s a creative way of exploring how languages change and evolve with time – and how language might evolve after a traumatic historical event.”

Both novels’ approach draws inspiration from the cult classic science fiction novel Riddley Walker by American author Russel Hoban, originally published in 1980, which similarly employed Estuary English.

“I’d like to think that Ebargofiant does for 21st century Wales and An Atheist Christian Gunslinger does for 21st century America what Riddley Walker did for 20th century England,” says Hunter. “Each of the three works responds in a related way to the concerns of their time.

“Riddley Walker is set after a nuclear apocalypse, which was the prevailing fear at the time it was written, whilst Ebargofiant was written in response to a sense of pending environmental catastrophe that was felt during the early 2010s. Wheras that threat hasn’t gone away of course, this new novel concerns itself with a different kind of breakdown again, and one which feels very pertinent to the 2020s.”

Manon Steffan Ros, author of the best-selling Blue Book of Nebo, has described An Atheist Christian Gunslinger as a “Groundbreaking, impactful and brilliant work. I truly loved this.”

‘Al I herd wɘz that familyer yelin. Maga maga maga maga.’

Jerry Hunter is widely acknowledged as one of the most ambitious and innovative novelists of recent years in the Welsh language, and it continues what is proving to be a busy year for this very Welsh American: His first play, Ledi’r Wyrcws (‘The Lady of the Workhouse’) toured in March and April this year, whilst his popular and award-winning Wesh literature Podcast Yr Hen Iaith, co-hosted with fellow academic Richard Wyn Jones, will record its 100th episode later this year.

An Atheist Christian Gunslinger, published by Melin Bapur books, will be available from 12 June 2026 and can be pre-ordered now from www.melinbapur.cymru for £8.99+P&P in the UK and $13.00+P&P in the US (with local postage available throughout the 50 States), as well as from all good booksellers.