Dannie Abse – författare

"I like very much people telling me about their childhood, but they'll have to be quick or else I'll be telling them about mine' said Dylan Thomas, and it is true that childhood – real and invented – exerts a particular fascination for writers. Perhaps the world is more vivid to children, or their growing realisation about relationships more intense, or perhaps the child is less constrained by the responsibilities of adult life. Whatever the case, by the time we have reached adulthood we are aware of an innocence left behind – sometimes sooner rather than later – and an Eden forsaken.Childhood surveys the pleasures and pain of childhood, mostly in Wales, across the centuries. Among the contributors are some of the best writers about childhood from any culture – Henry Vaughan, Siân James, Glenda Beagan, Trezza Azzapardi, Dylan Thomas, Kate Roberts, Robert Graves, Dannie Abse, Leslie Norris, Francis Kilvert, Glyn Jones, Gillian Clarke, Gwyn Thomas and many others. Through poems, stories, novels and autobiography readers will recognise the common currency of childhood and re-engage with the child within.Dewi Roberts is an acclaimed compiler of anthologies. His books include Christmas in Wales, A Clwyd Anthology and Birdsong. He has also published a travel book, The Land of Old Renown, and is an essaysist and reviewer for a number of publications. Apart from literature, his main interest is local history.

This anthology contains writing by many of the greatest authors of Wales. From Wilfred Owen and David Jones, Dylan Thomas and Dannie Abse to Christopher Meredith and Gillian Clarke, it spans a century which saw both the barbarism of mechanised warfare and the development of mass communication, mass literacy and a flourishing of creative endeavour.After the First Death draws on the experience of those who have faced death on the battlefield, and on others who have sought to put into words the complex philosophical, political and emotional responses that military action demands. Including poetry, extracts from fiction, memoirs, letters and biography, the book moves from World War One via the ideological battleground of the 1930s into the Second World War, then through the Cold War, Vietnam, the Falklands and the Gulf wars.Tony Curtis is Professor of Poetry at the University of Glamorgan where he directs an MPhil in Writing. He has published 26 books, including nine poetry collections, most recently Heaven's Gate (2001). A selection of his poetry has recently been translated and published in Armenia.

Welsh Retrospective is a selection of poems about his native Wales by one of Britain's most popular poets. Dannie Abse's Welsh and Jewish backgrounds have been essential to his writings. Wales and Cardiff, in particular, have haunted his imagination. In this revealing new book he writes movingly about the Cardiff of his childhood, home of his beloved Bluebirds football team, and also about the small village of Ogmore-by-Sea, location of early holidays and for many years his home in Wales. Selected from the whole of Dannie Abse's writing career, the book includes such well known and well-loved poems as 'Return to Cardiff' and 'In the Theatre' alongside many previously uncollected poems. Abse's range is remarkable. Vivid character portraits of Aunt Alice and Cousin Sidney sit next to tributes to poet predecessors, Dylan Thomas and Vernon Watkins. Some poems draw on Jewish writings, others on Welsh language literature. Welsh Retrospective gives fascinating insights into Dannie Abse's Wales and his versatility as a poet. His Wales is anything but parochial, his poems effortlessly universal. Every reader will be struck by a poet who has a gift for accepting mortality with wise optimism. The book is edited by Cary Archard who provides an introduction and notes on the poems.Dannie Abse (b.1923) was born in Cardiff and studied Medicine at Cardiff, King's College and Westminster Hospital. A poet, novelist, playwright, he has also published diaries and autobiography. He has published eleven volumes of poetry including a Collected Poems.

Dannie Abse, whose career as a poet spans sixty years, has made a huge contribution to the literature and literary life of Wales and to poetry and prose in the English Language. The Sourcebook is an essential companion to the poetry, prose, drama and critical writings of this major poet.Cary Archard has edited and written about Abse's work for over twenty years and collects here a marvellous representative selection of Abse's own writings, together with criticism of his work, which illuminates Abse's achievements for both students and general readers.Includes:Biographical and critical introductionSelection of Abse's criticism, autobiography and fictionInterviewsReviews of Abse's poetry over sixty yearsCritical essays of Abse's poetry, some newly commissionedBibliographyDannie Abse practised for many years as a doctor in a London chest clinic. Among his many publications are a dozen books of poetry and five novels, the last of which, The Strange Case of Dr Simmonds and Dr Glas was longlisted for the Booker Prize. His most recent book of poems, Running Late, won the Roland Mathias Prize and his prose memoir, The Presence, was Wales Book of the Year 2008.Cary Archard was born in south Wales, close to Aberdare, Alun Lewis's home town. The editor of Poetry Wales from 1980-86, and founder of Poetry Wales Press, he is the general editor of the uniform edition of Alun Lewis's works. Until recently he taught English and Philosophy in Bridgend.

Dannie Abse's rich mixture of Welsh and Jewish backgrounds, and his dual occupations of doctor and author, have led to what is widely regarded as one of the most readable, humorous and poignant autobiographies since the war. Goodbye, Twentieth Century incorporates his acclaimed first volume of autobiography, A Poet in the Family, in a new volume which brings his life up to the present and the outset of a new century.'Incident and character are vividly depicted, period is richly evoked and the descriptive passages remind one what a splendid poet the author is.', Observer . 'An entertaining and at times moving book. Mr Abse relates some very amusing anecdotes, and his informal yet controlled style is capable of moving without any sense of dislocation from these lighter occasions to deeply serious and affecting passages.', Times Literary Supplement

This is a limited hardback edition of Dannie Abse's classic memoir Goodbye Twentieth Century. Dannie Abse's rich mixture of Welsh and Jewish backgrounds, and his dual occupations of doctor and author, have led to what is widely regarded as one of the most readable, humorous and poignant autobiographies since the war.

Widely acclaimed for its warm humour, lyricism and honesty, as well as its accurate evocation of the 30s, this has become a classic. In this autobiographical novel, Abse interweaves public and private themes, setting the fortunes of a Jewish family in Wales against the troubled backcloth of the times.

Dannie Abse's rich mixture of Welsh and Jewish backgrounds, and his dual occupations of doctor and author, have led to what is widely regarded as one of the most readable, humorous and poignant autobiographies available today. Goodbye, Twentieth Century incorporates his acclaimed first volume of autobiography, A Poet in the Family, and in this new edition brings his life up to the present day and the outset of a new century. It includes a moving epilogue that speaks of his recent years which brought tragedy and dramatic change to his life.

Widely acclaimed for its warm humour, lyricism and honesty, as well as its accurate evocation of the thirties, Ash on a Young Man's Sleeve has become a sung-after classic. In this delightful autobiographical novel, Dannie Abse skilfully interweaves public and private themes, setting the fortunes of a Jewish family in Wales against the troubled backcloth of the times - unemployment, the rise of Hitler and Mussolini, and the Spanish Civil War.

Several months after the death of poet Dannie Abse's wife, Joan, in a car accident, he began to write a diary which is both a record of present grief and a portrait of a marriage that lasted more than fifty years. It is an extraordinary document, painful but celebratory, funny yet often tragic, bursting with joy as well as sorrow and full of a deep understanding of what it means to be human.