One Moonlit Night

Disgrifiad Cymraeg / Welsh Description

Cyfieithiad Saesneg newydd o Un Nos Ola Leuad , nofel hunangofiannol gofiadwy a ystyrir yn un o'r nofelau Cymraeg mwyaf nodedig a gyhoeddwyd ers yr Ail Ryfel Byd.

Disgrifiad Saesneg / English Description

A new English translation of Un Nos Ola Leuad , a largely autobiographical novel set in Bethesda, North Wales, first published in 1961 and considered to be a Welsh literary masterpiece.

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.

Adolygiad y Cyhoeddwr / Publisher Review

First published in the Welsh language in 1961 as Un Nos Ola Leuad , Caradog Prichard’s haunting masterpiece did not appear in English until 1995. This new edition of Philip Mitchell’s fine translation enjoys a foreword by Jan Morris and an illuminating afterword by Niall Griffiths, who acknowledges Prichard’s influence on his own work. Indeed, anyone who has read Runt will immediately recognise its roots here in the eerily naive child’s voice giving equal weight to the banal and the brutal, the material and the metaphysical. Growing up in a north Wales slate-quarrying village during the First World War, the young narrator observes people and events with an acute yet uncomprehending eye. He is, of course, the centre of his own universe – a child’s universe in which the sensual pleasure of a cold glass of milk and a slice of bread and butter when you are hungry and thirsty and the terror of being ill when your Mam is not there are as memorable and significant as a school friend dying of TB or a troubled neighbour slitting his own throat. There is a chill of foreboding hanging over both the boy and the entire community. Sadness, madness and badness are all here; yet here too abides a deep sense of empathy and forgiveness for all these ordinary souls struggling to survive in a harsh world. One Moonlit Night is a classic that defies classification, a remarkable portrayal of a community that steadily avoids the melodrama and bitterness that mark the works of some of Prichard’s more lauded contemporaries. The difference, perhaps, is that this is a community observed from within, with a sense of belonging rather than aloof alienation. As deep as the Black Lake and as mysterious as the Queen of Snowdon, this is a book to read many times.