Abandon All Hope: A Personal Journey Through the History of Welsh Literature [Hardcover]

An accessible introduction to the history of Wales’s literature.

I awoke from a deep sleep I had taken under the shade of a tree in a field at the outskirts of a dark wood, without remembering how I had gotten there, or, indeed, where it was exactly, I had gotten.
 
So begins a most unusual odyssey, in which a writer—who bears a striking similarity to our author, Gary Raymond—allows himself to be led through the many-layered realms of Welsh literature, not by Virgil but by the late Professor Raymond Williams.
 
Taking in the history of Welsh writing from the legacy of the Bardic tradition to contemporary experimental works,Abandon All Hopeintroduces Welsh literature in a way it has never been presented before: as cutting-edge, experimental, vibrant, exciting, intimate, and with a multitude of voices. This voyage into a uniquely Welsh inferno offers a revolutionary new way to examine and explain literary history.Gary Raymondis a novelist, critic, editor and broadcaster. He is the presenter ofThe Review Showfor BBC Radio Wales and is editor and co-founder ofWales Arts Review.He is the author of several books, including the novels For Those Who Come After,The Golden Orphans, and Angels of Cairo, as well as the nonfiction book,How Love Actually Ruined Christmas. As a critic he has been featured in The Guardian, BBC Radio Four’sFront Row,and BBC Radio Three’sSunday Morningprogram.