Angharad Price

With a title drawn from the work of TH Parry Williams – a master of the 20th-century essay form, on whom Price has written extensively – the subtlety and capaciousness of these writings reveal Price a successor as much as a researcher of his extraordinary talents. With subjects ranging from phonetics to cakes, from cleaning to Karl Marx, it is Price’s gift for sensitive, intelligent scrutiny that holds the volume together, her capacity to expand the meaning of the seemingly smallest mundanity.

"The most fascinating and wonderful book" JAN MORRIS"A restrained, lyrical tour de force" OWEN SHEERSIn the early years of the last century, Rebecca is born into a rural community in the Maesglasau valley in Wales; her family have been working the land for a thousand years, but the changes brought about by modernity threaten the survival of her language, and her family's way of life. Rebecca's reflections on the century are delivered with haunting dignity and a simple intimacy, while her evocation of the changing seasons and a life that is so in tune with its surroundings is rich and poignant. The Life of Rebecca Jones has all the makings of a classic, fixing on a vanishing period of rural history, and the novel's final, unexpected revelation remains unforgettable and utterly moving.

In this text, the author uses the novels of Robin Llywelyn as a focus for her discussion of the complex relationship between author, reader and society, at the end of the 20th century.