Grahame Davies – författare

A collection of five perceptive critical studies of the work of Saunders Lewis and R.S. Thomas in their relationships with their nation, in comparison with T.S. Eliot and Simone Weil, all four being representative of the anti-modern movement.

Cambridge: the right brain of Oxbridge, the composite capital city of Clever. For eight centuries, this quiet English seat of learning has been one half of history’s longest-running academic arms race. When it comes to stockpiling Nobel Prizes, only that Ivy League newcomer, Harvard, has more.This is the mater of all alma maters, with the kind of A-list alumni – Newton, Cromwell, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Darwin and Hawking – so famous they don’t even need first names. This is the city where Wittgenstein split hairs and where Rutherford split the atom; where Watson and Crick discovered the DNA that shapes the human body, and where generations of students push those bodies to their limits. But behind the picture-postcard image of punts, Pimms and polymaths, is another Cambridge: the working East Anglian fenland community that gave us Pink Floyd, Association Football, the Society for Psychical Research, the Cambridge Folk Festival, the Reality Checkpoint – and the graffiti protestor who sprayed his messages in Latin… Poet and psychogeographer Grahame Davies explores both Cambridges: the world city and the workplace, the glamorous and the gritty; the famous and the forgotten. He discovers there’s always more to discover about this extraordinary city – no matter how clever you are.

A Darker Way is a collection of poems and songs by Grahame Davies which traces a hard-won but redemptive path between idealism and irony, failure and faith. These poems are alert to both the superficiality and the seriousness of the everyday, often showing that human feelings are complicated and surprising.Renowned not only as a poet, but also as a lyricist, Davies’ lyrics explore belief and unbelief, meaning and mystery, dealing with love and loss with both realism and compassion. The spiritual, even the supernatural, is never far from the surface in these poems, but Davies never settles for the simplistic. His quiet, unassuming style is powerful, moving, and redemptive.

Celebrating the current resurgence of poetry by writers under 45 in Wales, Oxygen is a snapshot of recently established and exciting new talent writing in both the languages of Wales. Urban and rural, ironic and earnest, lyrical and lively, the poetry reveals there is plenty to get excited about. It may not be Cool Cymru but poetry is definitely edging towards the new rock and roll in Welsh writing. Contributors include Gwyneth Lewis, Oliver Reynolds, Paul Henry, Sarah Corbett, Kate Bingham, Owen Sheers, Frances Williams, Catherine Fisher, Don Rodgers and others in English, and Gwyneth Lewis (again!), Ifor ap Glyn, Twm Morys, Elin ap Hywel, Meirion McIntyre Huws, Elin Llwyd Morgan and others in Welsh. Thirty new poets in all, ready to roll over Offa's Dyke.

This poignant first novel is about social conscience and radical activism in the modern world. It intercuts the story of twentieth century French philosopher and radical activist, Simone Weil, with a fictional twenty-first century Welsh language campaigner, Meinwen Jones. The self-denying, ascetic lives of both women are portrayed with gentle clarity, and the novel travels between the humanising of dissent and the cold politics of acute social conscience. With Simone, Davies probes the experiences and philosophies beneath the cult radical and intellectual exterior which lead to her often shockingly self-destructive actions. Set against the tramping feet of fascism and communism in inter-war Europe, he shows us the little girl refusing sugar out of solidarity with first world war soldiers, the physically fragile woman enlisting for the Spanish civil war and eventually more or less starving herself to death in wartime London. Against this historical narrative is the actions of Meinwen and her contemporaries, through whom Davies examines the fate of radical conscience in post-devolution Wales. There are hard questions not just for the enemies of the Welsh language, but for its friends, for politicians and campaigners. The often uncomfortable political realities for a culture fighting for the survival of a Welsh identity are depicted from the inside and the harsh choices facing its long-time defenders explored unflinchingly. In a prison cell, Meinwen finds herself on the verge of following Simone's passionate asceticism to its logical conclusion. This is a translation of "Rhaid i Bopeth Newydd", which was longlisted for the Welsh Book of the Year in 2004.