In conversation with Alastair Laurence.
There is no present in Wales,
And no future;
There is only the past,
Brittle with relics.
‘A Welsh Landscape’ by R. S. Thomas
Richard King is the author of the recently published Brittle With Relics, a landmark history of the people of Wales during a period of great national change. He has also written 1962–97, Original Rockers (shortlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize and a Rough Trade, The Times and Uncut Book of the Year), How Soon Is Now? (The Sunday Times Music Book of the Year) and The Lark Ascending (a Rough Trade, Mojo and Evening Standard Book of the Year, shortlisted for the Penderyn Prize), all published by Faber & Faber. Richard was born into a bilingual family in South Wales and for the last twenty years has lived in the rural county of Powys, Mid Wales.
REVIEWS OF BRITTLE WITH RELICS…
‘A testament to the brutal circumstances that bonded the communities of Wales into a new polity for the twenty-first century.’ Gruff Rhys
‘Richly humane, viscerally political, generously multi-voiced, Brittle with Relics is oral history at its revelatory best: containing multitudes and powerfully evoking that most remote but also resonant of times, the day before yesterday.’ David Kynaston
‘Superb… deeply moving… A thought-provoking and superbly edited book, very balanced, with lots of points of view represented.’ Roger Lewis, Daily Telegraph
‘Brittle With Relics is nuanced, passionate and reflective, conveying a very Welsh blend of fatalism and hope.’ Rhian E. Jones, History Today
Alastair Laurence, who is curating this series, is a freelance documentary film maker who lives near Abergavenny. In recent years Alastair has made films about The Battle of the Somme, a history of British Photography and the poets John Betjeman, Philip Larkin and TS Eliot.
