Y Dydd Olaf is a much-acclaimed sci-fi novel in the Welsh language (written in 1968 and first published in 1976), which was the inspiration for musical artist Gwenno Saunders’ 2014 album of the same name. It has been translated into Polish, Cornish and English and was republished in Welsh in 2021 by Gwasg y Bwthyn.

A science fiction cult classic, it is more than a moving call to arms for speakers of minority languages facing extinction; at its core, it’s a tragic human-scale story played out between the few figures who could have stopped the madness before it was too late. It is, moreover, a meditation on themes like free will, artificial intelligence and the socio-historical processes that contribute towards the death of a nation. These themes are as relevant now – if not more so – as they were when the novel was written in 1968.

With science fiction tropes recalling Philip K. Dick, Kurt Vonnegut and, more recently, Olga Ravn’s The Employees, philosophical reflections in the vein of Dostoyevsky’s Notes From the Underground, and its postmodern form, The Last Day is a testament to the depth and creativity of Welsh literature.

Its translation into English The Last Day by Emyr Wallace Humphreys is long overdue.