Republic

Disgrifiad Cymraeg / Welsh Description

Mae Republic yn adrodd stori Cymraes ifanc yn tyfu fyny yn y 1980au a'r 1990au, yn dilyn chwyldro gwleidyddol a diwylliannol ynghyd â thwf Cŵl Cymru. Mae'r straeon a adroddir, a glywir ac a drosglwyddir yn creu portread cynhwysfawr o'r cyfnod, yn cynnwys yr heriau a wynebwyd gan ferched, siaradwyr Cymraeg a grwpiau ymylol eraill.

Disgrifiad Saesneg / English Description

Republic tells the story of a young Welsh woman growing up in the 1980s and 90s, following a boom in politics, culture and Cŵl Cymru. Stories told, overheard, and handed down create an expansive portrait of the era, including the challenges for women, Welsh-speakers, and other marginalised groups.

Dosbarthu

Byddwn yn dosbarthu eitemau sydd mewn stoc o fewn 3 diwrnod gwaith, fel arfer drwy Royal Mail Tracked 48. Ar gyfer archebion o flaen llaw, byddwn yn dosbarthu’r eitem o fewn 3 diwrnod gwaith ar ôl ei derbyn gan ein cyflenwr.

Dispatch

In-stock items will be dispatched within 3 business days, usually by Royal Mail Tracked 48. For pre-orders, we’ll dispatch within 3 business days of receiving the item from our supplier.

Bywgraffiad yr Awdur / Author Biography

Nerys Williams's first volume Sound Archive (Seren) was shortlisted for the Felix Dennis Forward prize and won the Strong first volume prize. In 2017 she was a Government of Wales-Literature Wales poet in residence at Passa Porta, Brussels as part of the Literature of Loss programme. That same year her second volume Cabaret was published by New Dublin Press. Nerys is an Associate Professor in poetry and poetics University College, Dublin, a Fulbright alumnus and is originally from Carmarthenshire. She lives in Kells Co. Meath with her husband and daughter.

Adolygiad y Cyhoeddwr / Publisher Review

Nerys Williams’s Republic is simultaneously touching and amusing, as she satirically depicts Welshness through the eyes of a west-Walian girl on the journey of becoming a woman. Her twenty-sentence-per-chapter structure of the eighty prose poems is a subversive method of conveying these reflections on life during a countercultural moment. Through music and community, Williams explores national identity and personal politics to capture the essence of what it is to experience Wales at a time of revolution and cultural explosion. There is a tenderness to her descriptions, and the success of this work, I believe, is due to the poet’s ability to piece together snippets of collective experiences that are relatable and that feel universal. Williams masterfully combines the public and private spheres in a way that makes them so relatable, yet such a personal and individual portrait of experiences. She tentatively encapsulates the bittersweetness of memories that are frozen in time as she recalls these moments. In doing this, the piece celebrates the oral tradition by putting these personal accounts of tales onto paper. Her nuanced and comedic telling of experiences, like overhearing that someone has had a cam in the eisteddfod where children are told they have been ‘swindled’ when they don’t win a prize, demonstrates some of her witticisms when reflecting on the ingrained cultural values that we share. Core memories are brought to the forefront, there is no need to imagine, as these experiences or similar have happened to us in some way or another. We envisage these characters and moments through our own lives, through tales told by our grandparents, our mothers and fathers, uncles and aunts. This collective mentality extends to the political realm too as the shared feeling of a need for change is expressed. Williams addresses the weight of this desire on the shoulders of every generation. Shared feelings of rebellion, resentment, fear and anger are turned into determination through the tone of this piece as she writes about protests and attacks on the Welsh language and accent. The post-punk feel of this collection takes you on a journey through the soundscape of the 1980s and 90s as she juxtaposes classical music with right-wing politics, and cleverly includes an extensive discography. Nerys Williams exposes frameworks of oppression in a new take on the lived experience of womanhood, specifically Welsh womanhood. The text’s preoccupation with exploring this topic contributes to the telling of this alternative narrative to the one that has been front and centre in many forms of Welsh activism. Republic is a sentimental, sensory and nostalgic portrait that experiments with ideas of the strength and determination of marginalised groups.