Martha, Jack & Shanco

Caryl Lewis has written widely for television, the stage, and for children.She lives near Aberystwyth.

‘Harsh, lyrical, devastating, Caryl Lewis’ Welsh-language novel of rural loneliness and loss sings with a bitter poetry in this translation by Gwen Davies. Subject and setting are canonical: the cycle of a tragic year, with ageing siblings marooned on the hill farm inherited from parents who fixed their fate. Did Martha and her brothers have “no choice”? Season by season, Lewis shows the pull of the place even as she tells how it ruins its people.’ – Boyd Tonkin, The Independent‘Strong writing which often sparkles. The talent for expression is at times superb, rising way above the challenge of translating. Gwen Davies’ translation succeeds wholly in persuading you to read the book. The language chosen is warm, keeping the novel’s truth... you can be confident that those who can’t read the original will not miss out.’ – Golwg‘Martha Jack & Shanco is a raw and often disturbing novel by Lewis, focusing on a farming family in rural west Wales who are dislocated from society and modernity.’ – BuzzBound together by blood ties, Martha, Jack and Shanco live on a farm in west Wales where their lives unfold in their eerie half- presence of their dead parents.Glimmers of understanding punctuate their relationship with one another, but unspoken animosity seems to be the most potent ingredient. A lament for the prizes and the price of nurturing a landscape: an antidote for anyone impatient with those who choose to stay in one place.