Dai Smith

a warrior's tale

Raymond Williams

Gareth Williams

"Rugby football has become identified with modern Wales. This book shows how and why this came about - how a game devised by and for English public school boys became the passion of an industrial, Welsh working class, why the game of rugby channelled a burning urge for dramatic, communal expression. The authors ... have written a history that combines an account of rugby play and administration with analysis of the vibrant social history of Wales."--Blurb.

The Official History of the Welsh Rugby Union, 1881-1981

Fields of Praise

All That Lies Beneath is white-knuckle fiction ride: power, sex, money, and ambition all twist through the pages as Smith creates a feast of intellectual and physical provocation in stories that send a shudder of fearful recognition directly through to the reader.

All that Lies Beneath

RAYMOND WILLIAMS (1921-1998) was the most influential socialist writer and thinker in post-war Britain. Now, for the first time, making full use of Williamss private and unpublished papers and by placing him in a wide social and cultural landscape, Dai Smith, in this highly original and much praised biography, uncovers how Williamss life to 1961 is an explanation of his immense intellectual achievement.

A Warrior's Tale

The Crossing bridges the past and the present and connects Wales with America, as it tells of coal owners and coal workers in the age of great transatlantic liners and fortunes to be made. At its heart is a fathers search for his daughter in Welsh valleys no longer proud, where creaming off regeneration grants has replaced coal mining as a way of life and development parks now stand where once did pit head wheels. It follows a lifetimes search for lost love, the sinking of a great ship in a great war, misplaced family and forlorn hopes where individual lives are shaped and fated in the shadow of modernity and the cold hand of progress. This brave, bold and challenging work conjures a vivid cast of characters into being and offering  with ready vim and ample vigour  their compelling, complex and ultimately telling story.

The Crossing

Hywel Francis

On St David's Day, 1927, 52 miners died in a gas explosion at the Marine Colliery. When the Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, arrived on the scene to bring condolences, he was shouted down by cries of murderer. The appalling working conditions and the Marine Colliery tragedy sparked off a wave of protest and led to a groundswell of support for the South Wales Miners' Federation, otherwise known as The Fed.

A History of the South Wales Miners in the Twentieth Century

The Fed

The Library of Wales Story anthologies feature the very best of Welsh short fiction, written amid the political, social and economic turbulence of twentieth century Wales and beyond. More than eighty outstanding works from the classics of Dylan Thomas, Rhys Davies, Arthur Machen and Gwyn Thomas to the almost forgotten brilliance of work by Margiad Evans and Dilys Rowe and then forward to the prize-winning work of Emyr Humphreys, Rachel Trezise and Leonora Brito, colouring and engaging in the life of a changed country. Story I depicts a Wales wracked by a driving capitalism, shriven by hypocrisy and soon devastated by two world wars; but still creative, resilient and sometimes laughing uproariously. The writers produced stories to entertain, engage and share in the intimate lives of a distinctive people. In this selection Dai Smith has crafted an anthology that gives a unique insight into the life of a country and the talent of its major writers.

Dai Smith

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