Which is the Greatest Welsh Novel? In 2014 Wales Arts Review asked this question, publishing 25 mini-essays on what our writers deemed the finest literary works in our country’s history. And over the next few months we will be revisiting each essay in a celebration of the Welsh novel. Although the eventual winner, (announced at our 2014 Roundtable, with readings from the book by Siân Phillips) Caradog Prichard’s One Moonlit Night (Un Nos Una Leaud), was a worthy choice in the public vote, the series’ true aim was to celebrate Welsh literature as a whole, to help and have a say in the ongoing task of creating a cannon, a tradition, and to simply draw attention to the riches of our literary history.
Greatest Welsh Novels chosen by Wales Arts Review:
A Toy Epic by Emyr Humphreys (Gary Raymond)
Submarine by Joe Dunthorne (Elin Williams)
Fantastic Mr Fox by Roald Dahl (Gary Raymond)
Shifts by Christopher Meredith (Dylan Moore)
One Moonlit Night by Caradog Prichard (translated by Philip Mitchell) (Jon Gower)
Awakening by Stevie Davies (John Lavin)
In and Out of the Goldfish Bowl by Rachel Trezise (Emma Schofield)
The Hiding Place by Trezza Azzopardi (Dylan Moore)
The Old Devils by Kingsley Amis (John Lavin)
Downriver by Iain Sinclair (Steven Hitchins)
The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen (Phil Morris)
So Long, Hector Bebb by Ron Berry (Craig Austin)
The Life of Rebecca Jones by Angharad Price (translated by Lloyd Jones) (Jim Morphy)
The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters (Gary Raymond)
The Genre of Silence by Duncan Bush (Robert Minhinnick)
Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne-Jones (Penny Thomas)
Gold by Dan Rhodes (Jamie Woods)
Chasm City by Alastair Reynolds (Charlotte Rogers)
Cwmardy & We Live by Lewis Jones (Jon Gower)
On the Black Hill by Bruce Chatwin (Gary Raymond)
The Withered Root by Rhys Davies (Dylan Moore)
Ash on a Young Man’s Sleeve by Dannie Abse (Phil Morris)
The Valley, The City, The Village by Glyn Jones (Jon Gower)
Border Country by Raymond Williams (Dai Smith)
