Novel
Rhys Lewis
Daniel Owen · 1885
Synopsis
Rhys Lewis tells the story of his life. The son of a widow in a slate-quarrying village in the north, raised in the chapel and under the watch of the elders, he grows up with an older brother, Bob, who reads, argues and ends up leading a strike against the owner of the quarry. The mother holds everything together single-handed. Rhys is sent to school, then it is decided that he will be a minister. Along the way he learns what respectability costs those who uphold it.
Context
The novel appeared chapter by chapter in a religious monthly from 1882 to 1885, before being collected in a volume that its author published at his own expense, then selling the rights to a publisher in Wrexham; the proceeds allowed him to build a house. He put a great deal of his own life into it: he had just lost his mother and his elder brother. It was the first time the language had carried a modern novel, and the first half of the book consists of the debate between an evangelical, conservative mother and her radical son, two characters who have since passed into the popular culture of the country.
Who it is for
Five hundred pages in Welsh, never translated. The text assumes the chapel life of the nineteenth century, which nothing explains to the reader from elsewhere.
Prizes and reception
The first modern novel in the Welsh language; its author is the only writer in the country whose name is attached to a national literary prize.