Cyngor Llyfrau Cymru
Cymru and I
Cymru and I
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Disgrifiad Cymraeg / Welsh Description
Daw naw llenor newydd ynghyd i archwilio ystyr Cymru a Chymreictod iddyn nhw. Maent yn cynrychioli cefndiroedd a dan-gynrychiolwyd hyd yma a cheir ganddynt olwg ysbrydoledig, newydd ar Gymru. Themâu a gyflwynir yw hunaniaeth, integreiddiad, iaith, uchelgais a dirywiad dinesig, a hynny o safbwynt ffoaduriaid ac aelodau cymunedau LGBTQ, niwro-ddargyfeiriol a dosbarth gweithiol.
Disgrifiad Saesneg / English Description
Nine new writers explore what Wales and Welshness mean to them as people from backgrounds largely under-represented in an inspiring new look at Wales, a Wales previously unwritten. Identity, integration, language, aspiration, civic decline are the subjects of those who have sought sanctuary: immigrants, the LGBT, neurodivergent people, and working-class communities.
Manylion y cynnyrch / Product details
- ISBN 13
- 9781781727300
- Gwales Code
- gwales.com.9781781727300
- Gwerthwr / Vendor
- Cyngor Llyfrau Cymru
- Long Title
- Cymru and I
- Awdur / Author
- Cymru, In partnership with Inclusive Journalism
- Current Price ex VAT
- £9.99
- Current Price inc VAT
- £9.99
- Availability Status (EN)
- Available
- Availability Status (CY)
- Ar gael
- Dyddiad cyhoeddi / Publication Date
- 2023-09-28
- Cyhoeddwr / Publisher
- Seren
- Editor
- Price, Emily; Griffiths, Siriol
- Media Type (EN)
- Paperback / softback
- Media Type (CY)
- Clawr meddal
- Pages
- 204 pages
- Size
- 135 × 208 mm; depth 20 mm
- Language Code
- English
- Categori / Category
- CY: Nofelau a Storïau ar Gyfer Oedolion (yn Saesneg) | EN: Adult Fiction and Stories (in English)
- Is-gategori / Subcategory
- CY: Detholiadau (yn Saesneg) | EN: Anthologies (in English)
Bywgraffiad yr Awdur / Author Biography
Cymru and I is made of nine very human stories about Wales and the many different kinds of Welshness it encompasses. The contributors are: Gosia Buzzanca, Tia-zakura Camilleri, Kelechi Ronald Ikpe, Mo Jannah, Bethany Mcaulay, Laura Mochan, Debowale Omole, Alice Roberts, Anthony Shapland.
Adolygiad y Cyhoeddwr / Publisher Review
This collection of essays, like a living library, offers the reader a number of unique experiences of living in Wales. The country is viewed as a jigsaw with some pieces missing. The aim is to help fill in the gaps left by those voices that are not normally heard. Undocumented lives led in secret is the theme of Anthony Shapland’s collection of fictional snapshots of gay love in Wales in a not-too distant past. ‘No-one was gay in Wales’, declares one of his characters and yet somehow gay people have lived and loved here. Mo Jannah’s more documented overview of migration into Wales shows how the different waves that made the Industrial Revolution possible in Wales – English, Cornish, Irish, Italians, Jews, Africans, Afro-Caribbeans, and Yemenis – have shaped the host communities and become part of the story of Wales. Laura Mochan hones in on the long history of Merthyr Tydfil in her love song to the town. She describes painfully how the rich history of that crucible has largely been denied to its present-day inhabitants. While Laura Mochan only made the relatively short journey from Cwm-bach, Aberdare to Merthyr, both Debowale Omole and Kelechi Ronald Ikpe came all the way from Nigeria to make their homes in Swansea. Despite being well-educated in Nigeria, speaking English alongside their other languages, they encountered difficulties in getting work and accommodation, and suffered from both the weather and racism. Debowale Omole’s recurring nightmare of being raided by the Border Force and deported is testimony to the constant uncertainty eating away at the lives of many migrants. But surprisingly perhaps, they both fell in love with the ‘ugly, lovely town’. For Polish-born Gosia Buzzanca, Wales became her sanctuary, despite what her son once described as the ‘national weather of Wales’ (rain), Brexit and the privations of Covid. She discovered the calming effect of making Welsh cakes and the joy of sharing them with others, and describes the hysterical (in hindsight) near-death experience of walking part of the Wales Coast Path and the subsequent relief and comfort of swimming in the honey-like Cardigan Bay. Extreme physical exertion seems to be Tia-Zakura Camilleri’s answer to the question she asks: Why don’t we walk? Hiking once seemed alien to her because of the lack of Black role models. In a single day, she and her father climb Pen-y-fan, Cadair Idris and yr Wyddfa (Snowdon). While the lack of Welsh-medium education in Grangetown excluded her from Welsh-language culture, climbing Wales’s mountains provides a concrete way of connecting with the land. The Welsh language proved a mixed blessing for Alys Roberts. She found learning to read easy at her Welsh-language primary school, but only when she later started to learn to read English did her dyslexia become apparent. Some put her dyslexia down to trying to cope with two languages, and that in turn delayed her formal diagnosis until she was 21. But she also shows how the importance given to performance in her Welsh-medium schools gave her ways to excel beyond reading and writing. Bethany Mcauly’s thoughtful essay proves the truth of the Welsh saying, ‘Gorau Cymro, Cymro oddi cartref’ (The best Welshman is the Welshman away from home). Musing on her childhood in Rhyl from the distance in time and place of adulthood in London, she explores the tension between being considered Welsh by her English friends and having grown up in a part of Wales not considered Welsh enough. What does being Welsh mean? And who decides? This collection offers no pat answers, but it does set out a breadth of experience that demands our attention.
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