Jasmine Donahaye – författare

Wales has a long history of interest in Palestine and Israel, and a close interest in Jews and Zionism. This monograph, the first to explore the subject, asks searching questions about the relationship that Wales has with the Israel-Palestine situation. Surveying Welsh missionary writing, fictional imaging of Jews, and the political use of Palestine and Israel, it challenges received wisdom about Welsh tolerance and liberalism, and identifies a complex and unique relationship. Whose People? Wales, Israel, Palestine makes an important contribution to international Jewish studies, to the study of British colonial involvement in Palestine, and to Welsh and Jewish literary and cultural history.)

The first full biography of Lily Tobias (1887-1984) a Jewish writer from Wales: a courageous, idealistic woman who wrote compellingly about Jewish life and experience in the 20th century. Lily Tobias wrote four novels, and a collection of short stories and the first dramatization for the stage of Daniel Deronda. Her fiction was always topical and drew on her own unique mix of cultures, focusing on her compassionate pacifism and desire for equity for all.

A wren in the house foretells a death, while a tech-loving parrot aids a woman's recovery. Crows' misbehaviour suggests how the 'natural' order, ranked by men, may be challenged. A blur of bunting above an unassuming bog raises questions about how nature reserves were chosen. Should the oriole be named 'green' or golden? The flaws of field guides across decades prove that this is a feminist issue. A buzzard, scavenging a severed ewe's leg, teaches taboos about curiosity.Whose poo is the mammal scat uncovered in the attic, and should the swallows make their home inside yours? The nightjar's churring brings on unease at racism and privilege dividing nature lovers, past and present. The skin of a Palestine sunbird provokes concern at the colonial origins of ornithology. And when a sparrowhawk makes a move on a murmuration, the starlings show how threat - in the shape of flood, climate change or illness - may be faced down.In Birdsplaining: A Natural History, New Welsh Writing Awards 2021 Winner Jasmine Donahaye is in pursuit of feeling 'sharply alive', understanding things on her own terms and undoing old lessons about how to behave. Here, she finally confronts fear: of violence and of the body's betrayals, daring at last, to 'get things wrong'. Roaming across Wales, Scotland and California, she is unapologetically focused on the uniqueness of women's experience of nature and the constraints placed upon it. Sometimes bristling, always ethical, Birdsplaining upends familiar ways of seeing the natural world.