Akenfield Portrait of an English Village

Ronald Blythe's Akenfield, which gives voice to the inhabitants of a rural village in Suffolk, England, was an early and shining example of what an oral history could be. This colorful, perceptive portrayal of country life reverberates with the voices of the village inhabitants. Blythe let his subjects speak their minds, and we are privileged to listen in on recollections and opinions of a wide variety of village residents, from the schoolteacher to the blacksmith, from survivors of World War I to the youngest generation of farmworkers—and nearly everyone in between. Providing insights into nearly a century of lived experience of farming, education, class struggle, and religious practice,Akenfield forms a unique document of a way of life that has, in many ways, disappeared since the book's first publication in 1969.