Fiction
ISBN: 9781854115447
Publication date: May 16, 2011
Price: £8.99
Daniel’s Beetles is the author’s translation of his prizewinning novel, Pryfeta.
Daniel is six. One afternoon, while playing with insects in the garden, he sees his father fall to his death. Is he upset? It’s difficult to say, because Daniel would prefer to attend to his beetles. Forty years later, he remembers nothing of the event. But two failed relationships and his elderly mother’s confusion bring Daniel face-to-face with his demons. Then he meets Cerys and Dr Bruno and discovers a bold new way of regaining control over the past.
Daniel’s Beetles is an absorbing, unnerving novel about memory and forgetting, stories and lies. It describes our attempts to recreate ourselves in ways we can never fully control. And in Dr Bruno, it offers a disturbing glimpse of how our fears and desires can be manipulated by much larger forces.
Tony Bianchi is from North Shields, Northumberland and lives in Cardiff. The Welsh-language version of Daniel’s Beetles won the Daniel Owen Prize in 2007 and was shortlisted for Wales Book of the Year. He has published two other novels in Welsh – Esgyrn Bach (2006) and Chwilio am Sebastian Pierce (2009) – and a volume of short stories, Cyffesion Geordie Oddi Cartref (2010). His English-language novel, Bumping (2010), was longlisted for the Portico Prize in 2010. He has also won awards for his poetry in Welsh.
“One of the most exciting writers working in Wales today.” – Lloyd Jones, Taliesin
“This is an intricate and multi-layered novel, rich in ideas and eloquent in expression, which will be pored over for years to come.” – Owain Wilkins, Planet
“…a rich, thought-provoking novel…” – New Welsh Review
“The writing is muscular and at times utterly overwhelming… I was exhilarated.” – Robat Arwyn, adjudicator, National Eisteddfod of Wales
“The questions this book asks are serious, but Bianchi writes with great humour. This strange and marvellous novel is a joy – to be read slowly and savoured.” – Planet
Tony Bianchi
Tony Bianchi (1952- 2017) was a native of North Shields, Northumberland and was educated there and at the University of Wales, where he received a PhD for research on the work of Samuel Beckett. He is a Fellow of Yr Academi Gymreig (the Welsh Academy of Writers) and a former Fellow of the University of Wales. Until 2002, he headed the Literature Department of the Arts Council of Wales. He published three novels in Welsh ‒ Esgyrn Bach (Y Lolfa 2006; long-listed for Welsh Book of the Year 2007), Pryfeta (Y Lolfa; winner of the 2007 Daniel Owen Prize and short-listed for Welsh Book of the Year 2008) and Chwilio am Sebastian Pierce (Gomer 2009) ‒ and a volume of short stories, Cyffesion Geordie Oddi Cartref (Gomer 2010). His first English-language novel, Bumping, appeared from Alcemi in May 2010 and was long-listed for the Portico Prize. He also won prizes for his poetry, published numerous critical discussions of Welsh literature in both languages, including a monograph on Richard Vaughan (University of Wales Press 1984), and edited the anthology of contemporary Welsh-language poetry, Blodeugerdd Barddas o Farddoniaeth Gyfoes (Barddas 2005). He lived in Cardiff and was a free-lance arts consultant, author, translator, editor, mentor and adviser to the Scottish Arts Council.
