New Welsh Review 63, Spring 2004

Editorial:

Another Country (Francesca Rhydderch)

In New Welsh Review 61, I responded enthusiastically to Tony Bianchi’s recent article on the Welsh noir novel, which had appeared in the online Welsh-European journal, Transcript. With the editors’ permission, a slightly revised version of that essay is printed in this issue of New Welsh Review: it is an important and sensitive piece of criticism. At the time, I was concerned to respond to Bianchi’s article from a post-colonial perspective, but I did also point to the profoundly masculine nature of noir. While removing the notion of noir from its literary ‘straitjacket’ does indeed lead to a revealing appraisal of recent fiction in Welsh and English, especially in the context of contemporary fictions of nationhood, the door remains firmly closed on the majority of women’s writing coming out Wales.
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Features

• David Jones: Writing into History by Duncan Campbell
  Duncan Campbell takes issue with a new biography of David Jones, Keith Aldritt's David Jones: Writer and Artist, and argues that Jonathan Miles and Derek Shiel's recently reprinted The Maker Unmade is still the best book to date on Jone's life and work.
  
  
• A Journey Through an Invisible Nation by Andrew Hussey
  Andrew Hussey travelled to Kurdistan late in 2003 to represent the University of Wales Aberystwyth at an international conference on the theme 'Reconciliation in Literature'. He describes what he found: a war-torn, profoundly divided nation where, now that the war itself is over, the battlefield is culture, and Kurdish writers and artists are under threat.
  
  
• From Glamorgan to Granta by Sheenagh Pugh and Dan Rhodes
  Both writers had an extraordinarily successful year in 2003. In this conversation piece they reflect on the highs and lows of the past twelve months.
  
  
• A Loss of Faith in History by Tony Bianchi
  A reflection on the latest literary phenomenon to emerge from Wales: the noir novel. This article was first published in Transcript, the online Welsh-European literary review.
  
  
• A Writer's Diary by Niall Griffiths
  Niall Griffiths in Nuuk, Greenland.
  
  
• Behind Every Great Man is a Small Woman Struggling to Get Out by Sian james
  A Memoir.
  
  

Fiction

• Mother of a Son by Ruth Joseph
  
• Descent by Gwyneth Hughes
  

Poems

Poems by :
John Barnie
Tony Curtis
Fflur Dafydd
Peter Finch
Matthew Francis
Kathryn Gray
Jeremy Hooker
Patrick McGuinness
Mervyn Williams

Reviews

The majority of books reviewed in New Welsh Review can be bought online from gwales.com, the Welsh Books Council's online bookshop, by simply clicking on the 'buy now' icon. For any that are unavailable, please contact the publishers or ask in your local bookshop. All details were correct at the time of publication.

• The Dust Diaries by Owen Sheers
  Published by Faber and Faber
  ISBN 0571210163  hb £10.99
  Reviewed by Tiffany Atkinson
  
  
• Dylan Thomas: A New Life by Andrew Lycett
  Published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson
  ISBN 0297607936  hb £20.00
  Reviewed by Andrew Hussey
  
  
• Dylan Remembered: Volume One 1914-1934 by Colin Edwards (interviews) and David N. Thomas (Ed)
  Published by Seren, in assoc. with the National Library of Wales
  ISBN 1854113488  pb £12.95
  Reviewed by Andrew Hussey
  
  
• Everything Will be All Right by Tessa Hadley
  Published by Cape
  ISBN 0224071742  hb £15.99
  Reviewed by Sarah Broughton
  
  
• Totes Meer by Dai Vaughan
  Published by Seren
  ISBN 1854113380  pb £6.95
  Reviewed by Amanda Hopkinson
  
  
• Angers, Fantasies and Ghostly Fears: Nineteenth-century Women from Wales and English-language Poetry by Catherine Brennan
  Published by University of Wales Press
  ISBN 0708317642  pb £14.99
  Reviewed by Sarah Prescott
  
  
• Remembering Carmen by Nicholas Murray
  Published by Seren
  ISBN 1854113372  pb £6.95
  Reviewed by Jeni Williams
  
  
• The Tower by Tristan Hughes
  Published by Parthian
  ISBN 1902638360  pb £6.99
  Reviewed by Carrie Etter
  
  
• Here & Now by Iwan Bala
  Published by Seren
  ISBN 1854113402  pb £9.95
  Reviewed by Tony Curtis
  
  
• Falling by Debbie Moon
  Published by Honno
  ISBN 1870206614  pb £5.99
  Reviewed by Kaite O'Reilly
  
  
• Frozen by Lindsay Ashford
  Published by Honno
  ISBN 1870206606  pb £5.99
  Reviewed by Kaite O'Reilly
  
  
• Brotherhood by C.A. Merriman
  Published by Parthian
  ISBN 1902638336  pb £5.99
  Reviewed by Emma Davies
  
  
• Fishboys of Vernazza by Sam Jones
  Published by Parthian
  ISBN 1902638344  pb £5.99
  Reviewed by Emma Davies
  
  
• R.S. Thomas: Identity, environment, deity by J. Christopher Morgan
  Published by Manchester University Press
  ISBN 0719062486  hb £40.00
  Reviewed by Fflur Dafydd
  
  
• Poems of the Year by Neil Astley (Ed)
  Published by Bloodaxe
  ISBN 1852246545  pb £3.99
  Reviewed by Paul Groves
  
  
• W.H. Davies by Lawrence Normand
  Published by Seren
  ISBN 1854112619  pb £7.95
  Reviewed by Matthew Smith
  
  
• Ethiop by Ishmael Fiifi Annobil
  Published by Totem
  ISBN 1899151052  pb £7.99
  Reviewed by Tom Cheesman
  
  
• A History of Education in Wales by Gareth Elwyn Jones and Gordon Roderick
  Published by University of Wales Press
  ISBN 0708318088  hb £35.00
  Reviewed by David Barnes
  
  
• Welsh Women's Poetry 1460-2001: An Anthology by Katie Gramich and Catherine Brennan (Eds)
  Published by Honno
  ISBN 1870206541  pb £12.99
  Reviewed by Teleri Williams
  
  
• Dog Days by Penny Simpson
  Published by Gomer
  ISBN 1843232286  pb £5.95
  Reviewed by Maria Donovan
  
  
• The Tip of My Tongue by Robert Crawford
  Published by Cape
  ISBN 0224069683  £8.00
  Reviewed by Kathryn Gray
  
  
• Celtic Hagiography and Saints' Cults by Jane Cartwright (Ed)
  Published by University of Wales Press
  ISBN 0708317499  pb £17.99
  Reviewed by Rowan O'Neill
  
  
• A Dragon to Agincourt by Malcolm Pryce
  Published by Y Lolfa
  ISBN 0862436842  £7.95
  Reviewed by Richard Poole
  
  

Letters

• Welsh Kitsch - Dai Smith
• Lynette Roberts - James A. Davies