Our Bookshelf
Browse our Bookshelves, selected annually by the Exchange as a window to recent Welsh literary works which we recommend for translation.
Niall Griffiths, Nation Cymru
"…a powerfully empathetic and sensitive book.”
Richard Gwyn
“…a stark and terrifying reminder that only the most fragile screen separates the familiar from the abyss. It is an elegant and sombre reflection on what it means to retain one’s humanity in the face of a brutal and dehumanising cataclysm.”
This Is Not Who We Are
Shortlisted for the 2023 Wales Book of the Year.
1994, Iris and Victoria are pen friends. Iris writes about her life with her family in Paris. Victoria is in a refugee camp in Goma having fled the genocide in Rwanda in which thousands are being killed. One day Victoria’s letters stop, and Iris is told she has been moved.
Twenty years later Iris, a new mother, is working as a journalist in London. As she prepares to return to work, her thoughts turn to Victoria and what might have happened to her. She pitches a story to her editor which sets her on a journey to find her pen friend. But as she follows the story, things emerge that make her question her own past. Was her father, a French government official, somehow involved in the genocide? Are her childhood memories more fiction than fact? Why is she looking for Victoria, really?
For Victoria, the last twenty years have been ones of migration, to Goma, then to Paris and finally to London. There she starts a new life with her youngest brother Paul, and leaves the past behind. Or so she thinks until she is suddenly confronted with the decision to reconnect with her genocide-supporting middle brother Benjamin.
How have the lives of these two women, who shared a moment in time, changed in the past twenty years? As the pressure of long-kept family secrets builds, will they ever find each other?
- Seren (2022)
Seren
Videos
Watch Author discuss and read from Meet the Author: Manon Steffan Ros
Watch Author discuss and read from Poetry Connections on Vimeo
Watch Author discuss and read from Jasmine Donahaye on Vimeo
Watch Author discuss and read from Translating Minority Languages in the Literary Translation Centre
Watch Author discuss and read from Digwyddiad Diwrnod Rhyngwladol Mamiaith 2021
Watch Author discuss and read from Alun Davies | Ar Lwybr Dial (Pursuit of Vengeance)
Watch Author discuss and read from Cyfnewid Anrhegion
Watch Author discuss and read from Iaith y Nefoedd (The Language of Heaven) | Llwyd Owen
Watch Author discuss and read from Mari Strachan on Vimeo
Watch Author discuss and read from Aled Islwyn on Vimeo
Watch Author discuss and read from The Party Wall | Stevie Davies
Watch Author discuss and read from The Jeweller | Caryl Lewis, translated by Gwen Davies
Watch Author discuss and read from We Could Be Anywhere By Now | Katherine Stansfield
Watch Author discuss and read from Footnotes to Water | Zoë Skoulding
Watch Author discuss and read from Gwirionedd | Elinor Wyn Reynolds
Watch Author discuss and read from Stillicide | Cynan Jones
Watch Author discuss and read from The Mission House | Carys Davies
Watch Author discuss and read from Wing | Matthew Francis
Watch Author discuss and read from Filò | Siân Melangell Dafydd
Watch Author discuss and read from Cymdeithas Cyfieithwyr Cymru yn cyflwyno Ffon yr Her Gyfieithu i Grug Muse yng Nghricieth on Vimeo
Watch Author discuss and read from Her Gyfieithu 2020 Translation Challenge
Watch Author discuss and read from Zafer Şenocak 'Nahaufnahmen’
Watch Author discuss and read from Grug Muse 'Craffu' on Vimeo
Watch Author discuss and read from Eleoma Bodammer 'Close ups' on Vimeo
Watch Author discuss and read from Tony Bianchi on Vimeo
Watch Author discuss and read from Damian Walford Davies on Vimeo
Watch Author discuss and read from Owen Martell on Vimeo
Watch Author discuss and read from Fflur Dafydd on Vimeo
Watch Author discuss and read from Wiliam Owen Roberts on Vimeo
Watch Author discuss and read from Deborah Kay Davies on Vimeo
Watch Author discuss and read from Lloyd Jones on Vimeo
Watch Author discuss and read from Stevie Davies on Vimeo
Watch Author discuss and read from Owen Sheers on Vimeo
Watch Author discuss and read from Jasmine Donahaye on Vimeo
Watch Author discuss and read from Siân Melangell Dafydd on Vimeo
Watch Author discuss and read from Lloyd Markham on Bad Ideas/Chemicals
Watch Author discuss and read from Llŷr Gwyn Lewis on Rhyw Flodau Rhyfel (Some Flowers of War)
Watch Author discuss and read from Llŷr Gwyn Lewis on 'Fabula'
Watch Author discuss and read from Richard Gwyn on The Blue Tent on Vimeo
Watch Author discuss and read from Eluned Gramich - Woman Who Brings the Rain on Vimeo
Watch Author discuss and read from Angharad Price on O! Tyn y Gorchudd on Vimeo
Watch Author discuss and read from Manon Steffan Ros on Llyfr Glas Nebo on Vimeo
Watch Author discuss and read from Niall Griffiths on Broken Ghost on Vimeo
Watch Author discuss and read from Richard Gwyn on Stowaway: A Levantine Journey on Vimeo
Watch Author discuss and read from Darllen y Byd - Llenyddiaeth Ryngwladol i Blant yn y Gymraeg
Reviews
"…a powerfully empathetic and sensitive book.”
Read more reviewsNiall Griffiths, Nation Cymru