Seren – förlag

What the Water Gave Me contains fifty-two poems in the voice of the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo. Some of the poems are close interpretations of Kahlo''s work, while others are parallels or version homages where Petit draws on her experience as a visual artist to create alternative ''paintings'' with words. More than just a verse biography, this collection explores how Kahlo transformed trauma into art after the artist''s near-fatal bus accident. Petit, with her vivid style, her feel for nature and her understanding of pain and redemption, fully inhabits Kahlo''s world. Each poem is an evocation of ''how art works on the pain spectrum'', laced with splashes of ferocious colour. ''Their apparent shared sensibility makes the ventriloquism of these poems entirely unforced, and while Kahlo''s voice is subtly distinguished from Petit''s own, both women have a way of taking painful, private experiences and transmuting them, through imagery, into something that has the power of folklore. They capture the unsettling spirit of Frida Kahlo and her work perfectly.'' Poetry London ''No other British poet I am aware of can match the powerful mythic imagination of Pascale Petit.'' Les Murray Times Literary Supplement

Gwydion is a boy on the verge of manhood who knows nothing of 9/11. But in 2084, the psychic shockwaves of the event that once shook the world are still felt in his village - all that is left of Wales. Gwydion''s mental powers bring him to the attention of the planet''s remaining politicians, desperate for a way to escape the failing Earth. But in a world that has lost track of its history, Gwidion is determined to find out the truth about his past. His efforts to answer his own questions propel him from his sheltered rural community, via the mysterious Soma Academy in Madrid, to a new life in the outer reaches of the galaxy.

Shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize, this is the third collection from a poet of powerful emotions and vivid imagery. The Huntress underlines the author''s reputation as a questing poet capable of outstanding imagistic flourishes and surprising associations. In this emotional follow-up to The Zoo Father, a daughter is haunted by her mentally ill mother until a series of remarkable transformations help her to conquer painful childhood memories. Over the course of the collection, the feared mother becomes a rattlesnake, an Aztec goddess, a Tibetan singing bowl, a stalagmite, a praying mantis, and then a ghost orchid, yet in the central poem the daughter becomes a cosmic stag and escapes her mother-huntress.

Shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize, this is the second collection from a poet of powerful emotions and vivid imagery. The Zoo Father underlines the author''s reputation as a questing poet capable of outstanding imagistic flourishes and surprising associations. This extraordinary and powerful volume is comprised of two sections, the first about with the poet''s relationship with her father, the second with her mother. Section One is heavily imbued with imagery of the poet''s travels in South America and her researches in the cultures and ecology of the Venezuelan rain forest. Pain, anger, bewilderment are refracted through a rich, often sensual imagery of fauna, hallucinatory drugs and tribal beliefs. This gives the poems their originality, and prevents subject matter of childhood abandonment and abuse becoming too harrowing. The imagery adapted from shamanistic beliefs is especially memorable. Section Two is set in southern France, in an almost equally exotic location of vineyards and ''dinosaur plateaux''. It concerns the poet''s family holidays in "the vineyard" and her rediscovery and subsequent repossession of that place. Once again, the poems delineate a primary relationship (with the poet''s mother), with the lushness of the imagery putting into surprising context the development of that relationship.

All the Souls is a poignant collection of short stories and a novella from author Mary-Ann Constantine. Rooted in the landscape and traditions of Wales and Brittany the stories draw on themes of collecting, superstition and legend, giving voices to ghosts and the dead.

Air Histories opens with a poem about a neolithic arrowhead uncovered by manmade environmental damage after lying for millenia in a Welsh mountaintop. It closes with a rollicking poem urging action to heal the wounds of the same piece of earth. In a dazzling range of styles and registers and diverse poems, Christopher Meredith explores the power of human ingenuity for good or ill, for making music or making war, and our fragile grasp of this ingenuity. The blind Oedipus makes a tortured, fragmentary speech to Antigone; a medieval chronicler is unable to write a word when history seems to stand still; a baffled Spanish priest in the 19th century tries to penetrate the mystery of how a guitar is made; an old woman who has forgotten almost everything else holds on to the secret alchemy of making gravy. Threading the collection are poems relating to landscape, especially to the Black Mountains. Air Histories is Christopher Meredith''s fourth collection of poems. He is also is the author of four novels. "The defining feature of Christopher Meredith''s poetry is an exquisite, almost painful precision. But there is also beauty and a bright, self-deprecating wit" Sarah Crown, The Guardian

A Small Country is the story of the Evans family, farmers in Carmarthenshire, with an introduction by Stan Barstow, author of A Kind of Loving. In the summer of 1914 son Tom returns from Oxford to find the family falling apart. His handsome father has gone to live with schoolmistress Miriam Lewis, who is to have his child. His mother, broken-hearted, lies ill in bed, while his beautiful sister Catrin longs to leave for London and art college. Soon Tom''s college friend Edward will arrive to holiday with them, half-aware of his attraction to Catrin but already engaged to Rose, a supporter of the Suffragettes. And Tom himself is in debt and disillusioned with his proposed legal career. He would like to manage Hendre Ddu, the family farm, but finds that family troubles and the approach of war set him on a very different course.

Si?n James brings her customary narrative flair and ear for dialogue to this beautifully-observed novel of love, scandal and grief set in wartime rural Wales. For three years, young teacher Rhian Evans has lived a life of isolation in her small village, patiently awaiting the return of her soldier-husband, Huw. While Rhian struggles to stay true to her strict Chapel upbringing, her carefree lodger Ilona Hughes apparently has no such concerns, seeming to live life as she pleases. As Rhian''s loneliness grows, Ilona''s influence leads her friend to confront the conflicting passions at work within her. Faced with the interests of art-teacher Gwynn Morgan (a married man with whom Rhian fell in love before meeting her husband) she finds herself questioning the morals imposed upon her by her upbringing, and eventually even her love for her absent husband. Soon, Rhian''s revived affections for Gwynn overpower both her loyalty to Huw and the disapproval of certain members of the community, leading the couple to embark on a passionate affair, just as Gwynn himself is called-up to fight. But Rhian''s sadness at his departure is nothing compared to her devastation when she learns of his death only a few weeks later; wracked by grief, loneliness and guilt, she endeavours to make peace with her community, and particularly with Gwynn Morgan''s urbane French widow.

Return to Hendre Ddu is a tumultuous sequel to Sîan James'' classic novel A Small Country. Once again Sîan James'' talent for character and dialogue weaves an intriguing tale of early twentieth century family life in rural Wales. Though Hendre Ddu, the home farm of the Evans family of Carmarthenshire, looks peaceful, it is the middle of the First World War and lives have been shattered here too. A Small Country ended with Catrin Evans'' sweetheart, Edward, killed in action and now the son of the farm, Tom Evans, returns from the front disabled. The shock is too much for their stalwart housekeeper Nano Rees. But life goes on and Tom and his father Josi, with his new wife Lowri, have their own battle to fight just keeping the farmhouse afloat. At first all seems to be going well, but increasingly tangled romances and financial realities bring heartache and new challenges for the troubled Evans family.

Past and present, real and imagined, vsible and invisible, worlds collide as Glenda Beagan explores people, places and memory. Many stories peer into the natural and spirit worlds, at times with terrifying results. Set in an acutely observed north Wales landscape of trees and hillsides, seaside towns and isolated houses, owls and foxes, the characters within the stries are gently but tellingly revealed, from self-made men to women emerging from the shadows of others. And throughout these tales of inspiration, premonition and mental trauma runs a threat of resilient humanity.

Emyr Humphreys is a major figure in twentieth-century writing and The Woman at the Window is an immensely enjoyable and impressive addition to his outstanding list of award-winning novels and short stories. From the widow alone in the rectory drawing room to views across the sunny expanses of post-war Europe, celebrated writer Emyr Humphreys offers this urbane, mature collection. His protagonists look back over the patterns of their lives and forward too, for the chance to untangle family relationships, rekindle lost loves, or find a home for themselves in familiar yet fresh surroundings.

The lives of congenial American fly-fisherman Billy and his younger sister Alice meander alongside the Susquehanna River in this offbeat coming-of-age novel of death, madness, and fishing by debut author Karen Fielding. What starts out as a frolic of losers and drifters along the American riverscape flows into something more sinister when twelve-year-old Billy Sycamore encounters a stranger in the woods, while Alice is left to deal with the fall-out. In the spirit of Richard Brautigan''s Trout Fishing in America and idiosyncratic like a George Saunders story, American Sycamore is a funny and fractious narrative about growing up in a small town in northeast America, with not a lot to do, but a whole lot to worry about.

In this, her twelfth collection, noted poet Sheenagh Pugh steps into a new, northern landscape, the Shetland Islands, with poems steeped in the wilder weathers and views of rugged coastlines, sweeping sea-vistas and the hardy historical characters who have inhabited these lands. A lovely pared-down spareness and an elegaic quality informing this new work. The author''s characteristic dry humour is also present; she is a poet who considers ''too accessible'' to be the best sort of compliment. Sheenagh Pugh''s work has as much to offer the general reader as it does the specialist, who will admire her artful use of traditional forms.

The Hitting Game'' is the first collection of poems by the London-based young poet Graham Clifford. The vibrancy of the poet''s voice and the immediacy of his claims upon our attention are clear. These poems provoke as well as delight. Characters arrive as ''you'' in ''Obvious Constellations'' ''Amazing'' and ''Trying''. Incidents are approached from disarmingly intimate and also entertainingly oblique angles. These are urban poems where nature appears like a strange intrusion: a flock of swallows ''flick about dust like black flames''. There is also a gentleness and empathy, particularly in regards to children, as in ''About my daughter'' where the word echoes: ''the er-ing sound of doubt/mixed with ought.'' There is humour and pathos as in the poem about a chimp and her keeper. These are poems full of minor dramas and fresh enchantments.

Robert Minhinnick''s latest prose collection follows him to China, theTower of Babel and Wales via the mysterious ''Island of Lightning''. Teeming with vivid depictions of people and the natural world, these twenty-three texts are an exhilarating combination of poetry, magic realism and wanderlust. On the journey we read about Minhinnick''s time spent in a fever hospital, his homage to darts, and tributes to artists as diverse as Elvis Presley and Jorge Luis Borges. And the collection culminates with the short story, ''Scavenger'', which suggests an alarming near future.

The title poem of this new collection of poems by Carolyn Jess-Cooke: ''Boom!'' enacts the moment when the new baby arrives in the family ''like a hand grenade''. ''Becoming a mother changed me in every single way,'' says the author, ''my first child - born in October 2006 - just about knocked me sideways. There were many reasons for this, but here''s the biggest one: I could not believe how public and political the (hugely personal) experience of motherhood was.'' A noted academic, author of a book about film and Shakespeare, and a best-selling popular novelist ''The Guardian Angel''s Journal'' and ''The Boy Who Could See Demons'', Jess-Cooke found, as many parents do, that the juggling act required to raise young children and continue a professional and creative life, is both exhausting and fulfilling. The poems chronicle the rapturous moments, such as ''Wakening'' where the baby is observed: ''the seedling eyes stirred by sunlight''. There are also the tragi-comic ''Nights'' full of ''small elbows in the face'' and ''assailed by colds and colic''. Jess-Cooke doesn''t flinch from the darker fears and depressions that can afflict parents. There are also pieces of pointed satirical intent and socio-political comment such as ''Poem made from bits of Newspaper Headlines '' and ''The Only Dad in Playgroup''. Viewing motherhood from a multiplicity of artful angles, the author says, ''Coupled with all this was the love I had for my children. It completely and utterly blew me away, how much I could love another human being.''

What could be worse than being stuck with a dead poet on a health kick? Lots, if you happen to be Jennie, a lonely and lovesick twenty-something from Swansea with everything to live for. In an attempt to win the affections of moody poet Peter, Jennie makes a pact with the shade of Dylan Thomas. It turns out to be a roller-coaster ride and the US trip of a lifetime. And after all it could have been worse - she could have got Wordsworth! Light hearted novella from Wales'' former National Poet, author and playwright.

The day he knew he was going to die, Liborio Uribe took his young daughter in law to the Museum of Fine Arts to show her a picture. Liborio had spent his entire life at sea, like his son José, living out unforgettable adventures which would later fade into obscurity. Years after, faced by the same painting, Liborio''s grandson Kirmen, a writer and poet, uses these family stories to write a novel. Bilbao–New York–Bilbao takes place during a flight to New York and tells the story of journeys by three generations of the same family. The key to the book is Liborio''s fishing boat, the Dos Amigos: who are these two friends, and what is the nature of their friendship? Through letters, diaries, emails, poems and dictionaries, Kirmen creates a mosaic of memories and stories that combine to form a homage to a world that has almost disappeared, as well as a hymn to the continuity of life. It is also a reflection on the art of writing, and lies between life and fiction. "Uribe has succeeded in realizing what is surely an ambition for many writers: a book that combines family, romances and literature, anchored deeply in a spoken culture but also in bookishness – and all without a single note of self-congratulation." – TLS "The novel is set in an absolutely modern territory, the usual place of key writers of our time such as Emmanuel Carrere, WG Sebald, Orhan Pamuk and JM Coetzee." – Sudouest "This book is as beautiful as a memory." – Le Figaró "Uribe''s literary proposal is entirely fresh and innovative. A novel of our time. This writer who comes from a ''small country'' begins his journey through the field of universal literature, searching for transnational communication." – Mainichi Shimbun "A splendid novel, which the reader acknowledges like a hug." – El País "Beautiful. It has the rare quality of attending to tradition without sounding like folk, and being modern without rejecting those that were so before." – ABC "This ingenious and original historiographical novel tells the story of its own writing, as Uribe explores the history of his family and the Basque Country fishing community of which they have long been a part. Framed by the author''s plane journey to the States, the web of digressions is mapped by ever-lengthening and constantly entwining cultural tendrils as the family diffuses around the world, led off by his father''s trawler. The intersection between truth and storytelling is a particularly potent theme, contrasting the prosaic and the poetic, the pragmatic and the romantic. It''s a view from the inside of the novel, looking out upon the reader in consideration of what might prove engaging, a metafictional conceit made engaging by the genial candour of Uribe, or at least his novelistic avatar, as he explores the process of researching and honing his book. Huge credit must go to Wales-based indie Seren Books for bringing this book to English-language readers; it''s extraordinary that this winner of Spain''s prestigious Premio Nacional de Literatura wasn''t picked up by a major publisher." – Jonathan Ruppin, Foyles Best Fiction: 2014

Ellen Davis was born in 1929 in the small German village of Hoof. Her Jewish family had lived there since 1760 but its peaceful existence was shattered when Hitler came to power and German Jews were persecuted. Ellen''s autobiography tells the harrowing story of her childhood struggle to protect her younger brothers and sisters from the terrors of life in Nazi Germany and her escape to Swansea via the Kindertransport. This is also the moving story of Ellen''s life in Britain, the difficulties of her first marriage and her love for her own Welsh children as she finds happiness in a new relationship. Meanwhile she continues to search for her German family and relatives in Australia, Israel and the US - a search which ends finally, heart-rendingly, in Riga in Latvia. Ellen Davis tells her story simply and honestly. In recent years she has given many interviews about her life and spoken about it especially to young people.

A Toy Epic is the story of three boys moving towards the threshold of adult life in the 1930s. From differing backgrounds their lives cross and touch until they become firm friends. Each of them, Michael, Albie and Iorwerth, take up the story in turn, creating their own particular world and contriubting to the composite picture of life in ''one of the four corners of Wales''. Significantly, A Toy Epic is Wales'' most important war novel, the dominant central theme of the book. It is framed by the two World Wars, and their shadows, one gone and one looming, colour the novel dark. War is the ultimate representation in the book of a dilemma: that war, although a threat to the existence of civilisation, can also advance it. A Toy Epic is Wales'' shining example of modernism. Humphreys, in this book at least, is a modernist in the exact sense of the word. He experiments with form (in the footsteps of Woolf - in particular The Waves which folds an avuncular arm around A Toy Epic from beginning to end), but also he is conducting these experiments at the fault lines of fear and exaltation that the early part of the twentieth century inspired in its artists. A Toy Epic is a marvellous example of modernist techniques employed to condense the reading experience whilst opening up the riches of the prose''s potential. It is also a very moving story of three boys growing up, about childhood, and Welsh childhood specifically, between the wars; it is about church versus chapel, about class, about different types of masculine identity, about prospects, about sex, marriage and about death. As M. Wynn Thomas points out in his full and excellent introduction to this edition, the boys represent the polarities at work in Wales during the time; the anglicanisation of Wales from without and within, the erosion of tradition, the significant internal migrations to the coast. Seldom has the country been so tellingly portrayed.

From England to Europe, Africa to South America, this collection from prizewinning short-story writer Graham Mort explores fraught relationships, parenthood, love affairs, sexual provocation, terror and terroir are all lit by a vivd sense of history and location.

Richard Parry is a painter who cannot paint, a writer who doesn''t write. His obession is Lulu, an aboriginal child. Returning from Australia to his south Wales hometomw, Parry finds it has become notorious for suicides of young people. As he tries to connect past and present he is haunted by dreams of Australia and of his youth. But is Parry all he seems?

The murder of God-fearing, bible-quoting, partially deaf Thomas Thomas at the branch of Star Stores he managed in Garnant, South Wales has remained an unsolved mystery since it happened in 1921. His body was found on the morning of Sunday February 13th, his head smashed, his throat cut and with a stab wound to the stomach, any of which could have killed him. Over £126 was missing from the store safe, yet there were oddities about the attack which suggested this was more than a robbery that went tragically wrong: Thomas had been gagged with cheese, and there was no tear in his trousers, shirt and waistcoat above the stab wound. What circumstances could explain these things? Garnant was in shock, and Scotland Yard arrived in the form of DI George Nicholls. A number of suspects were identified but none seemed to have the telling combination of motive and opportunity. Despite the expertise of Nicholls the case was eventually abandoned and the killer''s secret died with him. Until now. In classic cold case fashion journalist Steve Adams''s extensive researches have finally identified the killer, who is revealed at the end of the book, after a thorough reconstruction of the murder and the subsequent investigation. This is the story of a terrible crime in an almost archetypal Welsh mining town. It was a crime symbolic of a turning point in early twentieth century Wales, as the coal industry declined and its recently assembled townships came to terms with their uncertain futures and sought new identities.

''A voice that evokes humanity in all its depth and breadth, where the executioner and victim are brother and sister, where death is a daily occurrence. A voice I implore you to listen to... Through a felicitous mix of reportage and fiction, Courtemanche has powerfully portrayed a lucid character deeply engaged in a humanist quest.'' – Le Journal de Montréal The World, the Lizard and Me is a novel of testament to the plight of children caught up in the civil wars of Central Africa. First published in 2009, we are proud to be publishing the first English translation of this enthralling story. The World, the Lizard and Me follows the life of Claude Tremblay who, from the age of eleven has sought justice for thousands of voiceless victims. Now an investigator at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, he is pursuing Thomas Kabanga, a warlord charged with creating child soldiers in the Congo. Defeated in court by a legal technicality, Claude abandons his usual professional detachment and decides to act alone. He finds himself in the growing chaos of the mining town of Bunia, searching for more evidence and eventually encountering Kabanga. Pitched from distant observation into the grim reality of an African power struggle, he is confronted by a form of justice different from any he has experienced before. He also encounters at first hand the results of the inhumanity of the lives of child soldiers, and is forced to reconsider the nature of love and the notion of normality. Gil Courtemanche draws on his own experiences to write a novel of gripping immediacy. His Africa is a place unknown to many in the West, capable of encompassing extremes of humanity and brutality. The World, the Lizard and Me reveals and questions the motives of criminals and the effects and consequences of childhood. It is an enthralling story of war, work, obsession and the search for personal identity.

"The poetry is densely peopled, clamorous with voices, tender, furious and cut with an edge of hilarious clarity… the bravado, the assurance, of the beautiful-but-damned." – Sian Hughes, Poetry Review Animal People is the new collection by distinguished poet Carol Rumens. Often inspired by and infused with the weathers of various seasons of the year, many poems also feature a strong sense of place, whether it be the dramatic mountain rock-scapes of Snowdonia or the gritty streets of London and Hull. The key to the collection is the sequence ''On the Spectrum'', which explores what it is to be ''on the autistic spectrum''. Drawing on personal and family experience, this poem is infused with the author''s characteristic empathy, curiosity and humanity. There is a strong sense of commemoration in this collection, of time passing and of the challenges of mortality, and also a number of brilliant pieces that are influenced by translations or re-readings of classic works of literature.

As funny as a Nick Hornby, but with an existential seriousness that cannot be mistaken. – Ekstra Bladet.A glimpse of what it means to literally and physically be an outlaw because of your name... There is an energy of language, an underlying pain, an anger… – Politiken.A fantastic, unfanatical first-hand portrayal of life in a country at war with itself... You will both smile and feel sad over his descriptions and fast-paced dialogue with its moments of furious tension." – Nordjyske Bosnian teenager Miki and his family are escaping the Balkan war. They live in a Croatian refugee camp, a former holiday resort, but it''s difficult to adjust. With the war rumbling in the background and his brother in a Serbian prison camp, Miki and his new friends pick up girls, listen to music and have campfire parties on the beach. Then war breaks out between Croats and Bosnians and friends threaten to become enemies. Miki dreams of emigrating to Sweden but his parents can''t bear to give up on their old life in Bosnia.Based on his own experiences, Alen Mešković has written a novel by turns humorous and tragic, which has been compared to Salinger and Knausgaard. It is lively, poetic, raw, affecting and very funny, all the while depicting a European tragedy whose consequences still resonate today.

''Maggie Harris mines the hidden corners of marriage, motherhood, exile, and the places we choose to call home… Whether exploring Guyana''s junglescapes and flatlands, Irish cliffs or rural Wales, her characters arrive on the page eager to tell their stories.'' – Sharon Millar ''...bitter-sweet, beautifully written tales.'' – Janet Montefiore Maggie Harris'' short-story collection Writing on Water is told through voices from the Caribbean where she was born and Britain where she has lived as an adult, and through them, the wider world. These are stories of migration, belonging and survival, of children and families brought together or torn apart. This is a varied collection containing stories such as ''Sending for Chantal'', a story of Caribbean migration about a child who hasn''t seen her mum since she was 4 and is now in her 30s, which was the Regional Winner of The Commonwealth Short Story Prize in 2014. Maggie, who lives in West Wales, writes poetry and prose and also won the poetry section of the Guyana Prize for Literature 2014.

''Dark and rich, The Women of Versailles is filled with political intrigue, sexual awakening, and the roots of revolution.'' – Peggy Riley. In The Women of Versailles, the narrative slips between the decadent world of Versailles during the reign of Louis XV and the day, just before the French revolution in 1789, that Versailles is stormed by the women of Paris and Louis XVI is forced to move the court to the Tuileries. At the centre of this story is Adélaïde, who struggles with her budding sexuality and a desire for freedom of expression, both of which conflict with the expectations of the restrictive court. Adélaïde envies her brother, is bored with her sister and, when Madame de Pompadour, a bourgeoise, comes to court as her father''s mistress, she is smitten, with dangerous results. Adélaïde pushes against the confines of the court, blind to the difference between a mistress and princess, with tragic results. Forty-four years later, under the looming shadow of the revolution, what has happened to the hopes of a young girl and the doomed regime in which she grew up?

Arriving in 1950s Hull, Arthur Merryweather finds himself lodging with the landlady from hell, and falling in love with fellow librarian Niamh O''Leary. But just as their love threatens to bloom, the mystery of Mr Bleaney, the enigmatic insurance salesman who rented his room before him, threatens to pull the poet into disaster and cast him into the criminal hinterland of ''fish town'', that sublimely banal Larkinland ''beached on the mudflats at the end of the railway line, like a brick seal with a woodbine in its gob''.Hilarious, hugely enjoyable and deeply moving, Larkinland is the most compelling love story, mystery and biographical novel you are likely to read.A pitch-perfect realisation of Larkin''s poetic world, the author also cooks up his own set of moving misadventures, which reveal the loneliness, commonplaces, fears, lusts and hope we all must face. Drawing on meetings with the women in Larkin''s life, Larkinland casts startlingly fresh light on one of Britain''s greatest ever poets.