Seren: 87 books

The best of contemporary Welsh short story writing, Seren New Welsh Short Stories 2015 offers a wide-ranging view of a country from new and established writers including Stevie Davies, Trezza Azzopardi, Joe Dunthorne, Owen Sheers, Cynan Jones, Deborah Kay Davies, and Rachel Trezise. Stories range...

More for Helen of Troy, Simon Mundy's new collection of poems from Seren, is suffused with the atmosphere of the landscapes that inspire him, the lush countryside of Powys, and a number of islands all over the world:Genada, Jamaica, Shetland, Italy. It is also deeply involved with many questions of...

In this chilling mystery about the secret life of Dylan Thomas, Thomas's closest friends are confronted with the legacies that haunt their past. As the characters find themselves plunging into dangerous relationships, each must discover how they are inextricably tied to the events that shaped their...

The Road to Zagora is an unusual travelogue spanning India, Nepal, Syria, Turkey, Morocco, Peru, Equador and Wales which springs from Richard Collins' compulsion to travel after he was diagnosed with a progressive incurable disease in 2006. 'Mr Parkinson', as Collins refers to his condition, informs...

In The Roots of Rock, from Cardiff to Mississippi and Back Peter Finch reflects on how popular music has shaped both his life and the culture in which he lives, from first hearing American music on the radio in his Cardiff home in the 1950s to the compendious and downloadable riches of digital files....

Skillfully crafted and vivid with detail, this collection of prose examines the strength and fragility of life. From the heat of Africa to the warmth of France and the snowbound dales of northern England, this volume spans 20 years of short story writing and includes narratives that display a deep...

Leaping from the pages, jostling for position alongside the Valleys mams, dads, and bamps, and described with great warmth, the superheroes in question are a motley crew: Evel Knievel, Sophia Loren, Ian Rush, Marty McFly, a bicycling nun, and a recalcitrant hippo. Other poems focus on the crammed...

Alternating between serious and absurd, these 25 very short stories are written in a variety of styles and often from an unexpected viewpoint, such as that of an old woman, a young man with a missing wife, and a surgeon who becomes a shepherd. A wry, experimental system of color coding—with red...

After losing his job and his home, a young Japanese man seeks refuge in a wood and paper house. He attempts to reconstruct his identity, but with only a cat and a cello for company, and the menacing presence of a shapeshifter (yokai), his ability to hold on to his sanity disintegrates. Recipient of the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation Award.

Clueless Dogs is the first collection of poetry by Rhian Edwards. Already a noted performer of both her songs and poetry, this book confirms her startling talent and is shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection. Poems like 'The Welshman Who Couldn't Sing' chronicle a fraught childhood...

The Jack the Ripper murders of 1888 continue to exert a macabre hold on the collective imagination of the masses more than a century later, and this book, the result of extensive research, sheds some light on them. Among the first serial murders, their brutality and bizarreness begged questions such...

Christopher Meredith’s Air Histories starts in the Stone Age and ends in the future. It’s marked by formal diversity and a wide range of subjects, with the personal alongside the impersonal and the experimental alongside well-known forms, including some translations from the Welsh. Throughout,...

Though not the first anorexic, Sarah Jacob, “the Welsh fasting girl,” was arguably the first to cause a national uproar when she dominated the press in 1869, becoming something of a celebrity. Despite a team of nurses from Guy’s Hospital stationed at her home in Lletherneuadd, Sarah died, and...

In Losing Israel the search for her family's past and the part her forebears played in the newly created Israel reveals unsettling knowledge about kibbutzim in northern Israel. Challenged by this new and unwonted information Donahaye's notion of history and her understanding of Israel, of her grandparents...