Publisher's Synopsis
Although it is often thought that English language writing from Wales dates only from the twentieth century, it has an older tradition than many other national literatures. Welsh Writing in English is the first authoritative critical survey of this body of writing in its entirety, from the Middle Ages to the present day. The work of leading scholars, critics and writers in the field, it explores the many different and complex ways in which Wales has been written into existence, considering in detail writers from Henry Vaughan and John Dyer to Gillian Clarke and Christopher Meredith. Opening with a broad survey of the historical background that helped give the Anglophone literature of Wales its distinctive characteristics, Welsh Writing in English offers new readings of familiar, major writers (Dylan Thomas, R. S. Thomas, Raymond Williams, Emyr Humphreys), setting them in the context of their times and their contemporaries. It also discusses the industrial fictions of Wales, as well as reconsidering significant neglected figures, from Rhys Davies, Lynette Roberts and Geraint Goodwin to Brenda Chamberlain and John Ormond. Welsh Writing in English is a pioneering re-evaluation of a literature that appears to many to begin with Dylan Thomas and end with How Green Was My Valley. It demonstrates that Welsh identity is experienced as constantly changing, depending on how - and from where - it is viewed, and that Wales has produced a highly-varied and internationally important literature in English.
