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International Dylan Thomas Day 2016 | News and Offers

international dylan day 2016 offers

Happy International Dylan Thomas Day! This year is the second annual celebration of Dylan Thomas, held on 14th May to mark the date Under Milk Wood was first read on stage at 92Y The Poetry Center, New York in 1953.

International Dylan Thomas Day 2016 Dylan Day offers Seren

We have a number of Dylan Thomas related books in our store, and for today only, these titles are 50% off:

dylanday

Dylan Remembered: Volume One: 1914-1934, ed. David N. Thomas
Paperback:
£12.95

£6.48
Hardback:
£25.00
£12.50
This is the first of two volumes of transcribed interviews about the poet Dylan Thomas. Journalist, broadcaster, and author Colin Edwards interviewed numerous sources close to Thomas for a planned biography of the poet, but he was unable to begin work before his early death. The transcribed tapes have been edited into two collections, with the second due in 2004. Startling new information about Thomas’s life and writing is disclosed, including influences on his writing and the sources from which he drew inspiration and storylines.

Dylan Remembered: Volume Two: 1914-1934, ed. David N. Thomas
Paperback:
£12.95

£6.48
Hardback:
£25.00
£12.50
This second volume culled from the Colin Edwards Archive of interviews with Dylan Thomas’ family, friends and colleagues made during the 1960s covers Thomas’ ‘adult’ life from his move, aged 20, to London to become a professional writer to his death in New York 51 years ago. It is a story which we think we know, but the archive sheds new – often contradictory – light on a life which has been much mythologised.

Fatal Neglect: Who Killed Dylan Thomas, David N. Thomas
£9.99
£5.00
Who and what killed Dylan Thomas? The death of this iconic writer, in New York in November 1953, remains shrouded in mystery fifty-five years later. What might have been a triumphant new departure in his career and life with the first production of Under Milk Wood, and plans to work on operas with Igor Stravinsky and Samuel Barber turned instead into a requiem for man whose life spiralled out of control.
Leading Dylan Thomas authority David N. Thomas draws on his extensive research, and uncovers startling new evidence, to produce the definitive answers in a superbly written account which balances historical context with forensic detail, Thomas’ character with the demands made upon him by friends, lovers and his reading public.. His verdict is a chilling study of a poet, a place and a death.

Advantages of the Older Man, Gwyneth Lewis
£7.99
£4.00
A light-hearted novella exploring the strange case of a Swansea woman who is apparently possessed by the spirit of Dylan Thomas. Naturally all is not as it seems. The woman, who works in the Dylan Thomas Centre, meets a rather different Dylan from the one she knows by repute, one who doesn’t really fit in with the ghosts of other poets in heaven and is desperate to train himself to join the fitter shades of the long distance runners instead. Her own life, which has been lonely and sad, is completely transformed by the encounter.
Fluent and entertaining, the story is written with all the confidence and panache you would expect from the former national poet, also a playwright and award-winning author of fiction and non-fiction. Alongside the humour there is a warmth and pathos, and some pithy observations on poets and poetry and the nature of fame.

This offer ends midnight, 14th May, so take advantage before the time runs out!

And as always, there are events running all across the UK in celebration of Dylan Day, so when you’re finished browsing our website take a look on the Literature Wales website to find a Dylan Day event near you.

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Friday Poem – The New World

friday poem the new world meirion jordan

Tomorrow is International Dylan Thomas Day and we will be celebrating Swansea’s most famous son, so today our Friday Poem is by another Swansea native, Meirion Jordan.

Jordan was born in 1985 in Swansea. His début Moonrise was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, and his pamphlet, Strangers Hall, was shortlisted for an East Anglia Book of the Year award.

moonrise meirion jordan friday poemFinely held moods and moments resonate throughout this unusually accomplished first book. The rich, complex history of Wales often crops up, sometimes in unexpected contexts: ‘The New World’ is a vision, a cross between Dylan Thomas’ ‘Under Milk Wood’ and an early J.G. Ballard novel, of post-global warming Wales, with a polyglot population: “Ronaldinho Davies/wowing the crowds at the Millennium Stadium” and swamped by tropical vegetation: “cobalt lizards and coral snakes/swallowing the cottages an Llandinam/ the mahoganies uprooting Carno’s hearths”.

The New World

Roll on global warming. The Maentwrog Junta
seizing power on a Sunday morning
just after chapel, the frenziedly moustachioed
General Gwydion Mendéz proclaiming martial law
after the third psalm of the evening service.
The Gorseinon drugs cartel expanding
to the Aberystwyth favelas, bringing the clash
of kalashnikovs to constitution hill.
Samba and harps. O Seion Fryn
bawled out at thirty in the shade
by sweating ministers. Cawl mango
and coconuts replacing lava bread. Ronaldinho Davies
wowing the crowds at the Millennium Stadium,
the Rhondda turning out in rainbows
of rippling cloth and streamers to see England lose
four-nil, Islwyn Marley at half time
shaking the stands with sounds from Ynys Mon.
Olwen Perón leading the mob in Marchog Iesu
at the Cwmdonkin bandstand, her voice
spreading like an angelus along
the Taff Fechan, along Cwm Tywi.
David Attenborough filming the fauna
of the Nantgwynant valley, eccentric Englishmen
looking for the lost city of Dolgellau
up Cwm Pennant, out behind Corris.
100 percent humidity at Rhandirmwyn.
Kurtz Jenkins on the shores of Llyn Clywedog,
and everything from Llanidloes to Rhaeadr
declared ‘the dark interior’. The rattan
wrapping itself around the spine of the A470,
the cobalt lizards and the coral snakes
swallowing the cottages at Llandinam,
the mahoganies uprooting Carno’s hearths.
The moon at Devil’s Bridge pulled earthwards
in a sail of vines, the sun
squinting in the eye of a bromeliad
that wields its universe of frogspawn out
from Carnedd Dafydd to the new world.

Buy your copy now.

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Lost & Found

Recent years have been fantastic for Wales in the literary world. 2014 saw the centenary of Dylan Thomas, this year we’re celebrating the centenary of Alun Lewis, and next year, 2016, marks the centenary of Roald Dahl.

This year in particular has been a big year for the publishing world as a whole. As well as our centenary celebrations for WW2 writer Alun Lewis, 2015 marks 150 years since the publication of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and has even seen the publication of Harper Lee’s second novel, Go Set A Watchman, 55 years after the publication of To Kill a Mockingbird.

But Go Set A Watchman isn’t the only “lost” novel to be published this year. This year at Seren we’re publishing Morlais, a novel by Alun Lewis that was thought lost until last year.

Morlais cover

Following in the footsteps of Richard Llewellyn’s How Green Was My Valley, Morlais is set during the Depression in south Wales, and follows Morlais Jenkins and his struggle when he finds himself caught in the middle of the class divide. From a long line of miners, Morlais finds his talents lean more towards poetry and academia, and when he is adopted by the local colliery owner’s wife after the death of her own son his struggle with his identity begins.

Will you be reading Morlais this year?

Don’t forget to follow our Alun Lewis Twitter and Facebook, and check out the Alun Lewis website!

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Dylan Day

idtd

Thursday 14th May marks the very first International Dylan Thomas Day – Dylan Day – paying homage to the anniversary of the date Under Milk Wood was first read on stage in New York in 1953. Today Literature Wales are inviting everyone to celebrate Dylan Day in their own way, whether it’s by reading some of Dylan’s work or visiting somewhere associated with Dylan; luckily for us, Swansea’s just a train ride away!

On social media Literature Wales are encouraging people everywhere to show how they’re celebrating with the hashtag #DylanDay, and they’re even looking for photographs of readers reading Dylan using the hashtag #DylanSelfie. Have you taken part yet?

dylanday

Find these Dylan Thomas related books and more on our website!

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The Murder of Dylan Thomas

Seren will be bringing you a new short story every month in 2014, written by some of the best undiscovered and established writers in Wales.

February’s short story takes a look at the haunting legacy of Dylan Thomas, something we’re likely to hear a lot about this year. Written by Somerset Maugham prizewinner Mark Blayney, The Murder of Dylan Thomas, is set in the future, looking back through the smoke and mirrors of Browns Hotel to a confused but essential past.

Read The Murder of Dylan Thomas here.

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