Hedd Wyn was a Welsh-language poet who was killed on the first day of the Battle of Passchendaele during World War I. He was posthumously awarded the bard's chair at the 1917 National Eisteddfod. Evans, who had been awarded several chairs for his poetry, was inspired to take the bardic name Hedd Wyn from the way sunlight penetrated the mist in the Meirionnydd valleys.
Saunders Lewis was a Welsh politician, poet, dramatist, Medievalist, and literary critic. Born into a Welsh-speaking ministerial family in Greater Liverpool, Lewis studied in a public school growing up. He rediscovered the importance of both his heritage language and cultural roots while serving as a junior officer in the British Army during the trenches of the First World War. As a vocal supporter of Welsh nationalism, Lewis believed, however, that heritage language revival, cultural nationalism and the decolonisation of Welsh-language literature, the dramatic arts, and culture needed to precede Welsh devolution or political independence. If the excessive Anglophilia and colonial mentality traditionally known as Dic Siôn Dafydd was never challenged or defeated, Lewis predicted in 1918, "the Welsh Parliament would [only] be an enlarged County Council."
William Williams, Pantycelyn, also known as William Williams, Williams Pantycelyn, and Pantycelyn, was generally seen as Wales's premier hymnist. He is also rated among the great literary figures of Wales, as a writer of poetry and prose. In religion he was among the leaders of the 18th-century Welsh Methodist revival, along with the evangelists Howell Harris and Daniel Rowland.
Islwyn Ffowc Elis was one of Wales's most popular Welsh-language writers.
Dolgellau is a town and community in Gwynedd, north-west Wales, lying on the River Wnion, a tributary of the River Mawddach. It was the traditional county town of the historic county of Merionethshire until the county of Gwynedd was created in 1974. Dolgellau is the main base for climbers of Cadair Idris and Mynydd Moel which are visible from the town. Dolgellau is the second largest settlement in southern Gwynedd after Tywyn and includes the community of Penmaenpool.
Medieval Welsh literature is the literature written in the Welsh language during the Middle Ages. This includes material starting from the 5th century AD, when Welsh was in the process of becoming distinct from Common Brittonic, and continuing to the works of the 16th century.
Marion Eames was a Welsh novelist writing mainly in Welsh. She was also a talented musician.
Rowland Ellis was a Welsh-born landowner and politician who immigrated to the English Province of Pennsylvania where he spent the rest of his life. Ellis was born c. 1650 in Wales. The owner of the "Bryn Mawr" farm near Dolgellau, Merionethshire, he became a Quaker after English religious leader George Fox visited Dolgellau in 1657. As a result of religious persecution against Quakers in Wales, Ellis and a number of other Welsh Quakers emigrated to Pennsylvania, an English colony in North America, in 1686. A new settlement established in the colony was named Bryn Mawr after Ellis' farm.
The Tir na n-Og Awards are a set of annual children's literary awards in Wales from 1976. They are presented by the Books Council of Wales to the best books published during the preceding calendar year in each of three awards categories, one English-language and two Welsh-language. Their purpose is "[to raise] the standard of children's and young people's books and to encourage the buying and reading of good books." There is no restriction to fiction or prose. Each prize is £1,000.
Morgan Glyndwr Jones, generally known as Glyn Jones, was a Welsh novelist, poet and literary historian, and an important figure in Anglo-Welsh literature. He served as both Chairman and President of the Welsh Academy's English-language section. His study The Dragon Has Two Tongues (1968) discusses ways in which the interwar period affected his generation of Welsh authors.
Mihangel Morgan is a Welsh author.
John Ellis Williams,, novelist and writer from Caernarfonshire, wrote in Welsh and in English.
Lloyd Jones is a poet, novelist and photographer. In 2002 he became the first person to walk completely around Wales, a journey of a thousand miles.
Welsh-language literature has been produced continuously since the emergence of Welsh from Brythonic as a distinct language in around the 5th century AD. The earliest Welsh literature was poetry, which was extremely intricate in form from its earliest known examples, a tradition sustained today. Poetry was followed by the first British prose literature in the 11th century. Welsh-language literature has repeatedly played a major part in the self-assertion of Wales and its people. It continues to be held in the highest regard, as evidenced by the size and enthusiasm of the audiences attending the annual National Eisteddfod of Wales, probably the largest amateur arts festival in Europe, which crowns the literary prize winners in a dignified ceremony.
Dead Man's Ransom is a medieval mystery novel by Ellis Peters, first of four novels set in the disruptive year of 1141. It is the ninth in the Cadfael Chronicles, and was first published in 1984.
Iwan "Iwcs" Roberts is a Welsh actor, lyricist, singer, novelist, script writer and film producer of Dal y Mellt. He has worked on various films, including the BAFTA-winning productions Eldra and Y Lleill, and is well known for his portrayal of character Kevin Powell in the Welsh soap opera Pobol y Cwm. He has also had a successful career as a singer-songwriter, both as part of the duo Iwcs a Doyle and as a solo artist.
Dr Williams' School was a school founded in Dolgellau in 1875. It opened its doors in 1878 and continued until it was closed in 1975.
In addition to English, literature has been written in a wide variety of other languages in Britain, that is the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. This includes literature in Scottish Gaelic, Welsh, Latin, Cornish, Anglo-Norman, Guernésiais, Jèrriais, Manx, and Irish. Literature in Anglo-Saxon is treated as English literature and literature in Scots as Scottish literature.
Tony Bianchi was a prize-winning novelist, poet, short-story writer and critic, writing in both Welsh and English.
John Gwilym Jones was a Welsh dramatist, novelist, short-story writer, drama director, academic and critic, considered a pre-eminent figure in those fields. In particular, he is widely acknowledged to be one of the two greatest 20th-century Welsh playwrights, along with Saunders Lewis; of his many plays, Hanes Rhyw Gymro (1964), Ac Eto Nid Myfi (1976) and Yr Adduned (1979) are considered masterpieces. Almost all of his work was written in the Welsh language. A writer in the modernist tradition, he is credited with introducing Brechtian techniques, stream-of-consciousness narrative and Freudianism to Welsh literature. Creative writers such as Kate Roberts and John Rowlands owed him a profound debt, and a whole generation of critics were influenced by his work as a teacher of Welsh literature.
