Ash on a Young Man's Sleeve

Disgrifiad Saesneg / English Description

Widely acclaimed for its warm humour, lyricism and honesty, as well as its accurate evocation of the thirties, Ash on a Young Man's Sleeve has become a sung-after classic.

Archebu o flaen llaw

Os nad yw’r teitl hwn wedi’i gyhoeddi eto, gallwch ei archebu o flaen llaw. Byddwn yn dosbarthu eich eitem cyn gynted ag y bydd ar gael gan y cyflenwr ac wedi cyrraedd atom. Gall dyddiadau cyhoeddi newid.

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Dosbarthu

Byddwn yn dosbarthu eitemau sydd mewn stoc o fewn 3 diwrnod gwaith, fel arfer drwy Royal Mail Tracked 48. Ar gyfer archebion o flaen llaw, byddwn yn dosbarthu’r eitem o fewn 3 diwrnod gwaith ar ôl ei derbyn gan ein cyflenwr.

Dispatch

In-stock items will be dispatched within 3 business days, usually by Royal Mail Tracked 48. For pre-orders, we’ll dispatch within 3 business days of receiving the item from our supplier.

Bywgraffiad yr Awdur / Author Biography

Dannie Abse was born in Cardiff in 1923. He began his medical studies at the Welsh National School of Medicine and qualified as a doctor from Westminster Hospital, London in 1950. While still a student his first book of poems was published and his first play performed. He married Joan Mercer in 1951. She had been an economics student at the London School of Economics and together in a long and happy marriage they raised three children, Susanna, Keren and David. Joan would also develop a career as a writer. For Dannie Abse further poetry volumes followed over the decades, culminating in his New & Collected Poems (2003) and Running Late (2006). His first novel, Ash on a Young Man’s Sleeve , appeared in 1954. It drew on his secular Jewish upbringing in a large cosmopolitan Cardiff family in the 1930s, it has become a much-loved modern classic, regularly studied in schools and in higher education. His brothers at home would become well-known in public life, the politician Leo Abse and the psychoanalyst Wilfred Abse. His final novel, The Strange Case of Dr Simmonds and Dr Glas in 2002, was longlisted for the Booker Prize. His three prize-winning plays were collected in The View from Row G , while his autobiography, Goodbye, Twentieth Century , was published in 2001. His collected poems, Ask the Moon appeared in 2014 following Speak, Old Parrot (2013) which mused on the challenges of ageing, “all pavements slope uphill”; but also allowed compensations especially the friendship of the poet Lynne Hjelmgaard. The Presence , published in 2006, was a moving memoir celebrating and mourning his wife, who had died in a traffic accident after a collision on the M4 motorway near Porthcawl in 2005. Dannie had been driving the car at the time. They had been taking part in a poetry reading at the Porthcawl pavilion. Dannie Abse also enjoyed a successful medical career specialising in pulmonary disorders which he saw as a counterpoint and enrichment to his literary output. Dannie Abse was an enthusiast and advocate for literature especially poetry and the people who create it. He reviewed and edited many books and was seminal in the development of Welsh writing in English through his chair of the Welsh Academy and as part of the founding team of the publisher Poetry Press Wales, known as Seren Books. Seren’s first office was housed in the garage of his house at Ogmore-by-Sea. He regularly travelled throughout the UK and internationally to read from his work. He served on many boards and chaired several societies in a long career of engagement and support. He was awarded a CBE for services to poetry and literature in 2012. He died in 2014.

Adolygiad y Cyhoeddwr / Publisher Review

Introduced by Julia Bell Widely acclaimed for its warm humour, lyricism and honesty, as well as its accurate evocation of the thirties, Ash on a Young Man’s Sleeve has become a sung-after classic. In this delightful autobiographical novel, Dannie Abse skilfully interweaves public and private themes, setting the fortunes of a Jewish family in Wales against the troubled backcloth of the times - unemployment, the rise of Hitler and Mussolini, and the Spanish Civil War. "Mr Abse writes beautifully and tenderly of the things he has seen and felt.” – The Times