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Un Nos Ola Leuad (One Moonlit Night) is a novel written by Welsh writer Caradog Prichard. It was first published in 1961. It has been translated into English by Philip Mitchell.
The novel is an account of childhood, and depicts a mother-son relationship, seen from the viewpoint of the son. It is set in Bethesda, Wales around the years 1915–1920, in the midst of the North Wales quarrying areas. Bethesda is only referred to as "the Village", but neighbouring places are given their real names. [1] The novel has autobiographical echoes. [2] Prichard wrote the novel in middle age and it was completed after his mother's death in 1954.
Prichard's biographer, Menna Baines, has remarked upon the difference in what is made of the community as it is looked at in Prichard's work, with how it appears in the work of Kate Roberts, and T. Rowland Hughes, also writers of the Caernarfonshire quarrying district.
"This community traditionally portrayed as [-] hard-working, devout, [of] cultured and politically aware quarrymen, belonging to a whole community of like-minded people was a potent myth of the Welsh-Nonconformist-Radical tradition [-] in Prichard's novel the local pub seems more the focus of village life, and in place of the dignity and stoicism portrayed in the Roberts/Rowland Hughes world [-] here people crack and go under with the strain, commit suicide and go insane [-] religion is not an anchor, but an obsession, gossip and superstition, not political ideas are exchanged on the streets." [3] Comparisons have been made with the world of Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood .
In 2022, One Moonlit Night was included on the "Big Jubilee Read" list of 70 books by Commonwealth authors, selected to celebrate the Platinum Jubilee of Elizabeth II. [4]
Twm Siôn Cati is a figure in Welsh folklore.
The Grey King is a contemporary fantasy novel by Susan Cooper, published almost simultaneously by Chatto & Windus and Atheneum in 1975. It is the fourth of five books in her Arthurian fantasy series The Dark is Rising.
Bethesda is a town and community in Gwynedd, Wales. It is on the banks of Afon Ogwen and on the edge of Snowdonia. It is 5 miles (8.0 km) from Bangor.
Caradog Prichard was a Welsh poet and novelist writing in Welsh. His daughter, Mari Prichard, was married to the late Humphrey Carpenter.
Rachub is a village of about 900 people in Dyffryn Ogwen, Gwynedd, Wales, about three-quarters of an mile (1.2 km) north of the town of Bethesda. It forms part of the Llanllechid community, which had a population of 889 in the 2011 census.
The Penrhyn quarry is a slate quarry located near Bethesda, North Wales. At the end of the nineteenth century it was the world's largest slate quarry; the main pit is nearly 1 mile (1.6 km) long and 1,200 feet deep, and it was worked by nearly 3,000 quarrymen. It has since been superseded in size by slate quarries in China, Spain and the USA. Penrhyn is still Britain's largest slate quarry but its workforce is now nearer 200.
Philip Mitchell is an English author, playwright, poet and translator. Born in Manchester, England he is an established author with BBC Radio Drama and was a question-setter on the UK game show Bacha Hi O'Ma! but is perhaps best known for his acclaimed translation of Caradog Prichard's Welsh language novel Un Nos Ola Leuad, as One Moonlit Night (ISBN 0-8112-1342-0).
The existence of a slate industry in Wales is attested since the Roman period, when slate was used to roof the fort at Segontium, now Caernarfon. The slate industry grew slowly until the early 18th century, then rapidly during the Industrial Revolution in Wales until the late 19th century, at which time the most important slate producing areas were in northwest Wales. These sites included the Penrhyn Quarry near Bethesda, the Dinorwic Quarry near Llanberis, the Nantlle Valley quarries, and Blaenau Ffestiniog, where the slate was mined rather than quarried. Penrhyn and Dinorwig were the two largest slate quarries in the world, and the Oakeley mine at Blaenau Ffestiniog was the largest slate mine in the world. Slate is mainly used for roofing, but is also produced as thicker slab for a variety of uses including flooring, worktops and headstones.
William Gwenlyn Parry was a Welsh dramatist, the author of several plays in Welsh, including Saer Doliau (1966), Ty ar y Tywod (1968), Y Ffin (1973), Panto, Sal and Y Tŵr (1978).
Richard Hughes Williams, or Dic Tryfan, was a Welsh language writer of short stories, born in Rhosgadfan in the old county of Caernarfonshire (Gwynedd), north Wales. Most of his stories are set in the slate-quarrying communities of his native Caernarfonshire. He was known to the renowned Welsh novelist Kate Roberts, an early admirer of his work who grew up in the same area.
Llanllyfni is a village and a community in Gwynedd, Wales. It is in the historic county of Caernarfonshire. The community consists of the villages of Drws-y-coed, Nantlle, Nasareth, Nebo, Penygroes, Talysarn and the village of Llanllyfni itself. Penygroes, Llanllyfni and Talysarn are almost conjoined. As an electoral ward the 2011 census recorded a population of 1256. It is a largely Welsh-speaking village as 85% of the villagers speak Welsh as their first language. The community covers 43 square kilometres.
Tregarth is a village near Thomas Telford's A5 London to Holyhead road between the town of Bethesda and the city of Bangor in Gwynedd, north Wales. It is in Llandygai Community. It had a population of over 1,300 as of the 2011 census..
Beka Lamb is the debut novel from Belizean writer Zee Edgell, published in 1982 as part of the Heinemann Caribbean Writers Series. It won the Fawcett Society Book Prize in 1982 and was one of the first novels from Belize to gain international recognition. In 2022, it was included on the "Big Jubilee Read" list of 70 books by Commonwealth authors, selected to celebrate the Platinum Jubilee of Elizabeth II.
Deiniolen is a village in Gwynedd, Wales, at the foot of Elidir Fawr, in Llanddeiniolen Community. Deiniolen has views over Caernarfon and on a clear day, Holyhead Mountain and occasionally the Wicklow Mountains in Ireland, can be seen. The population of the electoral ward was 1,909 as of 2011, including nearby Dinorwig, with 81.2% of the population speaking Welsh. The community, Llanddeiniolen, has a population of 5,072 as of the 2011 census, the third-largest in Gwynedd.
Thomas Rowland Hughes, was a Welsh novelist, broadcaster, dramatist and poet. He was the son of a quarryman from Llanberis, Caernarfonshire, in north Wales. He is primarily renowned in the present day for his novels about characters living and working in the slate quarries of north Wales, but in his day he was just as well known as a poet and broadcaster. William Jones and Chwalfa are his most famous novels.
The history of the Welsh language spans over 1400 years, encompassing the stages of the language known as Primitive Welsh, Old Welsh, Middle Welsh, and Modern Welsh.
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.
Submarine is the first novel by Joe Dunthorne. First published by Hamish Hamilton in 2008, it was adapted into a film in 2010.
The Big Jubilee Read is a 2022 campaign to promote reading for pleasure and to celebrate the Platinum Jubilee of Elizabeth II. A list of 70 books by Commonwealth authors, 10 from each decade of Elizabeth II's reign, was selected by a panel of experts and announced by the BBC and The Reading Agency on 18 April 2022.
The Night Tiger: A Novel is a 2019 novel by Malaysian author Yangsze Choo, written in English.