This simple novel tells of one boy’s journey into the grown-up world. By the light of a full moon our narrator and his friends Huw and Moi witness a side to their Welsh village life that they had no idea existed, and their childish innocence is exchanged for a shocking introduction to the horrors of the adult world. First published in Welsh in 1961, Philip Mitchell’s translation, the first complete translation in English, captures all the vibrancy of Prichard’s magnificent prose. In this new edition Jan Morris and Niall Griffiths explain why this remains one of the Britain's most significant and brilliant pieces of fiction.
The Reviews
Premonitions of insanity and the mercurial personality of its narrator give the story a hallucinatory, ambiguous edge.Herald
Challenging, compressed and utterly compelling.
Guardian
Paperback
192 pages
Price: £7.99
ISBN: 9781847671073 Other editions
Paperback
Caradog Pritchard (1904-1980) was born in the slate-quarrying town of Bethesda, in north-west Wales. Pursuing journalism as a career, he ended up as a sub-editor on the foreign desk at the Daily Telegraph. During this time he wrote four prize-winning odes and this exceptional novel. He remained in London until he died.
