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School of Welsh

Prose Classics on Stage and Radio

Image of Angharad Price's O! Tyn y GorchuddTwo Welsh literary classics can currently be seen on stage and heard on the radio.  While one of the most popular novels to be penned in Welsh by an ex-Bangor student has recently been adapted for a full stage production, a contemporary novel by a present-day lecturer in the School of Welsh has been adapted for the radio.

The National Theatre of Wales’s production of Cysgod y Cryman (‘The shadow of the sickle’) by Islwyn Ffowc Elis has been touring Wales in recent weeks – and tickets for Siôn Eirian’s adaptation of the family saga are in high demand!  The title was named Welsh-language Book of the Century by readers of the Book Council of Wales in 1999.

And on Sunday, 11 and 18 February, an adaptation of Angharad Price’s O! Tyn y Gorchudd (‘Remove the veil’) can be heard on Radio Cymru, a novel regarded as the first prose classic of the twenty first century.  The novel was awarded the Prose Medal in the 2002 National Eisteddfod and was named Book of the Year by Arts Council of Wales in 2003.

The novel tells the story of Rebecca Jones, born in 1905, and her family in Tynybraich, Dinas Mawddwy in Montgomeryshire.  It was described by Angharad Price as a tribute to the life Rebecca - a family relative of hers - could have lived since she died aged eleven.  Another ex-student of Bangor, singer and actor Siân James from Montgomeryshire, has been aptly chosen to read the novel.

And the good news is that another novel is soon to appear.  Since joining the School of Welsh at Bangor University last October, Angharad Price has been busy writing her third novel helped by a Welsh Academy Writer’s Bursary.  She will also be busy this coming August since she has been chosen, along with novelist Jane Edwards and writer John Gruffydd Jones, to adjudicate the Prose Medal competition in the Flintshire and District National Eisteddfod 2007.

O! Tyn y Gorchudd is broadcast on BBC Radio Cymru at 5 o’clock on Sunday, 11 and 18  February.
Saesneg

For more details about Angharad Price, click here:

http://www.welshlitabroad.org/authors.cfm?lan=e&switch=dsp&author_id=39&CFID=1488903&CFTOKEN=94744046

Meic Stephens has translated Cysgod y Cryman into English: for details about Shadow of the Sickle, click here.

http://www.gwales.com/reviews/?isbn=9781859026526&tsid=4