A Welsh-language autobiographical classic by Kate Roberts, adapted by the National Poet of Wales, Gillian Clarke. In the tradition of the Welsh hunangofiant (autobiography), Kate Roberts introduces us to a community, rather than an individual. This parallel Welsh-English text will be a delight for readers in Wales and beyond.
“While I was writing these things the dead rose from their graves to talk to me. They will return to their sleep. I have written about my family and have described this as autobiography, but I am right. My story is my family’s story. It is they who wove my destiny in the distant past. [...] Have I told the truth? No. I comfort myself that it is impossible to tell the truth in an autobiography. I left out the ugly things.”
First published in Welsh in 1960, Kate Roberts’s lyrical memoir of her early life is re-issued here as a parallel Welsh/English text, with a fine translation by Gillian Clarke. This is such a gift to those of us whose inadequate Welsh would leave us struggling with the original but who have sufficient interest and understanding to skip between the two versions, allowing both languages to sing to us in their unique ways. Thus, Roberts’s White Lane of memory “crosses Foel Smatho to Waun Fawr to Heaven”; “y Lôn Wen, sy’n mynd dros Foel Smatho i’r Waun-fawr ac i’r Nefoedd” and “daw lleisiau dros farwydos coelcerthi Moel Smatho ac yn donnau ar hyd y Lôn Wen, ‘Bryd, bryd, caf fi orffwys ynddi hi?’”
The White Lane both is, and is not, autobiography. It is non-linear, non-chronological; a collection of family stories, childhood memories, individual portraits, and personal musings on community and society; a flow of thoughts and images conveyed in inimitable style by one of the twentieth century’s greatest Welsh prose writers. The White Lane is authentic story-telling, rooted deeply in reality. It is Roberts returning to her source. Sometimes so pragmatic and down-to-earth; at others, utterly fanciful. Always arresting.
~Suzy Ceulan Hughes @ www.gwales.com
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