These famous Welsh authors, whose names and words have carried through history, inspire us with their timeless stories and poems about Wales. Whether they are modern Welsh authors like Bethan Gwanas or poets from the Middle Ages like Dafydd ap Gwilym, here’s a list of some of the most talented writers in Wales’ literature.
Who is the most famous Welsh author? While there is arguably more than one author who qualifies for the title of “most famous,” just to name a few Welsh novelists who have made (and continue to make) significant marks on history: Dylan Thomas, Richard Llewellyn, Kate Roberts, Dafydd ap Gwilym, and Bethan Gwanas. This small handful on our list of famous Welsh authors takes us all the way back to the Middle Ages with Dafydd ap Gwilym to the present day with authors like Bethan Gwanas.
This post is about famous Welsh authors.
Famous Welsh Authors
Famous Welsh Authors: Dylan Thomas
Dylan Thomas is a famous Welsh author born in Swansea in 1914 and died in New York in 1953 at only 39. Thomas immortalized himself through his poems “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” and “And Death Shall Have No Dominion.” He also wrote a radio drama that was adapted for stage and film called “Under Milk Wood.” The drama is set in the fictional Welsh village of Llareggub, a name that Thomas coined by humorously reversing the letters of the phrase “bugger all.”
Thomas also wrote several short stories, some of which were quite dark, especially the early ones. Later stories reflected on his childhood. Two famous collections of such stories are Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog and A Child’s Christmas in Wales. In addition to being one of the most famous Welsh authors, people also regard Thomas as one of the most important 20th-century poets writing in English. A prolific writer throughout his life, Dylan Thomas wrote 57 works, including poetry collections, dramas, screenplays, short stories, documentaries, and audio recordings.
Dylan Thomas Collected Poems (Wordsworth Poetry Library) by Dylan Thomas
From the blurb:
Dylan Thomas wrote some of the best-known and best-loved poems of the twentieth century, amongst them ‘Do not go gentle into that good night’, ‘Fern Hill’ and ‘The force that through the green fuse drives the flower’. This edition reproduces the Collected Poems 1934-1952 which the poet authorised just before his tragically early death at the age of 39 and which contains, as he said, ‘most of the poems I have written, and all, up to the present year, I wish to preserve’.
His was a precocious talent: his first poem was published nationally at the age of 18, and his first collection, 18 Poems, was published when he was just 20. In spite of his early death, he therefore left behind a substantial and significant body of work, represented here. His poems cover the span of birth to death, while at their heart is a lyrical, joyful impulse that celebrates life.
Welsh Writers of the 21st Century: Kate Roberts
Kate Roberts was a Welsh author born in 1891 in Rhosgadfan, Caernarfonshire, and died in 1985 in Denbigh. Her words have made such a lasting impression that the Welsh people call her the “Queen of Our Literature.” Roberts studied Welsh at the University of Wales in Bangor and graduated with honors. She became a teacher of Welsh, History, and Geography.
It was through joining the political party Plaid Cymru that Roberts met her husband, Morris T. Williams. (Plaid Cymru is the Party of Wales, a Welsh nationalist party that wants to make Cymru an independent nation within the European Union.) After getting married in 1928, Roberts left teaching and stayed home to write. The couple lived in Cardiff in South Wales until 1931 and then in Tonypandy. They also bought Gwasg Gee (Gee Press) printing press in 1935.
Who is the most famous Welsh woman?
While Dame Shirley Bassey, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Megan Lloyd George are all famous Welsh women, Kate Roberts is surely the most famous female Welsh author! While living in South Wales, Roberts published many short stories and books, including her most famous one, Traed Mewn Cyffion (Feet in Chains), which she published in 1936. The author used grief, especially sadness involving family, to catalyze her creativity. Writing was a way for her to deal with sorrow and move through it. She continued writing until 1981, when she finished her last book, Haul a Drycin (Sun and Storm).
Writing About Life in Wales
Common themes of her novels are the rural community and her childhood life, with the mining culture also present in the background. She also wrote about women in society and the new freedoms and responsibilities of women’s suffrage in 1928.
In addition to being such a prolific writer, Roberts was an influential critic, editor, journalist, and publisher. She also continued her political activism and campaigning for Plaid. Thousands of schoolchildren have read and continue to read Robert’s books, learning about Welsh life and culture in the early 20th century. The author was also instrumental in establishing a Welsh school in Denbigh. The school, Ysgol Twm o’r Nant, opened in 1968.
From the blurb:
Spanning a 40-year period ending during the First World War, Feet in Chains is a compelling saga of family life in the slate quarries of north Wales, a novel which ranks alongside How Green Was My Valley in the canon of Welsh literature. On their small holding Jane and Ifan Gruffydd struggle to raise a family, wresting a sparse living from the thin soil and hard rock of the mountain. This is a time of depression and upheaval, subtly delineated by Roberts’s skilful and sensitive characterisation. The inhabitants of this world are prone to all-too-human failings: vanity, social climbing, avarice and religion’s hypocrisies. Yet virtues also exist: stoicism, dignity, thrift and, above all, compassion.
Famous Welsh Authors: Richard Llewellyn
Richard Llewellyn was born in Middlesex, England, in 1906 and died in Dublin, Ireland, in 1983. While historians initially believed that he was born in Pembrokeshire in Wales, they learned this wasn’t true after his death. However, Llewellyn was a Welshman, and many of his novels dealt with Welsh themes.
Llewellyn’s real name was Richard Dafydd Vivian Llewellyn Lloyd, with the well-known “Richard Llewellyn” being a pen name. He’s probably known best for his novel How Green Was My Valley, published in 1939, about a Welsh mining family and became a best seller. The book was also made into a well-reviewed Hollywood movie in 1941. Llewellyn wrote the sequel, Up, Into the Singing Mountain, over two decades later in 1960.
In addition to traveling extensively, the author also served in World War II and achieved the rank of Captain in the Welsh Guards. After the war, he worked as a journalist and covered the Nuremberg Trials. Including a play, Richard Llewellyn wrote 25 books.
Up, Into the Singing Mountain by Richard Llewellyn
From the blurb:
This book will tear you apart and put you back together again. It opens where the first book, How Green Was My Valley, opened: Huw packing up to leave his valley in Wales. But rather than a long flashback, we go forward in his life from there—on to Patagonia, Argentina, with a Welsh expatriate community, but mostly from composed of those *other* people, the North Welsh. Huw moves into town as a boarder, starts up his carpentry business, sorely needed after a great flood in the year prior, and meets a beautiful woman, Lal. He then faces similar problems to his life growing up—nature’s wrath and man’s evil—gossip.
Llewellyn does an amazing job of characterization so that we as the readers really care for the characters, move for them, and feel that we are right there with them. He describes without describing, and Welsh Patagonia comes to life before us. —Amazon customer
Welsh Novelists: Bethan Gwanas
Bethan Gwanas is a contemporary Welsh writer who not only authors novels but books for Welsh learners. Her true surname is Evans, but she uses the name of her family farm—Gwanas—which was built in 1838. Gwanas writes almost exclusively in Welsh. Born in 1961, Gwanas published her first book in 1997. She’s published 17 more within the last ten years.
In 1985, Gwanas won the Crown at the Urdd Eisteddfod. Putting her talent to use and winning this prestigious title helped launch her career on the path of success. While she’s lived around the world from Bethesda, Nigeria, France, and Cardiff, she now makes her home in Rhydymain, close to where she grew up.
An Enthusiastic, Busy, and Restless Writer
Before concentrating on her writing full-time in 2003, Gwanas worked as a teacher of French, English, and outdoor activities. Her book Amdani! (Go for it!), about a women’s rugby team, inspired four series on S4C (a Welsh-only television station). The author wrote the scripts for all but the last series. Following this, she also wrote a stage play centering around rugby. The achievement garnered her a major ACW Audience Development Award from Script Cymru. Gwanas has also won the Tir na n-Og prize for Best Fiction of the Year twice from the Welsh Books Council.
In 2024, Gwanas received the highest honor in children’s literature with the Mary Vaughan Jones Award. With 51 books published in Welsh for children, teens, and adults—geared toward readers who are both fluent in Welsh or are still learning—she’s made a tremendous contribution in this field.
Who are some of Bethan Gwanas’ favorite authors?
Gwanas says her favorite authors who write in Welsh are Islwyn Ffowc Elis and Geraint V Jones. Her favorite authors who write in English are Isabelle Allende, Roddy Doyle, JK Rowling, and Barbara Kingsolver.
Bethan Gwanas’ Books
Some of Gwanas’ most popular books include Llinyn Trôns, Ceri Grafu, Gwylliaid, Pen Dafad, and the Cadi series for younger readers. These well-read and well-loved novels are already considered classics by many. You can find her complete list of titles on Bethan Gwanas’ Author page on Amazon.
Cyfres Amdani: Yn Ei Gwsg (Welsh Edition) by Bethan Gwanas
From the blurb:
Llyfr o gyfres Amdani, i ddysgwyr Lefel Sylaen. Nofel wreiddiol gan Bethan Gwanas. Mae Dafydd yn cerdded yn ei gwsg, ac un bore, mae’n deffro yn waed i gyd. Mae’n dilyn olion traed gwaedlyd allan o’r ty a thrwy’r pentref ac yn darganfod Mrs Roberts a’i zimmerframe ar ochr y ffordd wedi’i tharo gan gar. Pwy sydd wedi ei tharo? A fydd yr heddlu yn arestio’r person cywir? Adargraffiad. Cyhoeddwyd yn gyntaf yn 2018.
A book for Welsh learners, Foundation Level, being an original novel by Bethan Gwanas. Dafydd sleepwalks, and awakes one morning covered in blood. He follows bloody footprints out of the house and through the village to find Mrs Roberts at the roadside after a hit-and-run case. Who has hit her and will the police arrest the culprit? Reprint. First Published in 2018.
Famous Welsh Writers: Dafydd ap Gwilym
Going back in time quite a few centuries to the Middle Ages, we come to the famous Welsh poet Dafydd ap Gwilym (read: Dafydd, son of Gwilym). His mother’s name was Ardudful. Dafydd was born in 1315 in north Ceredigion in Cymru and is thought to have died in 1350. He came from a wealthy family and was well educated both through formal means and family members.
Dafydd wrote at least one hundred and seventy poems. He likely had written even more, but those are what we know of that have survived. This Welsh writer wrote mainly about nature and romantic love. Over the years, other poems have been attributed to Dafydd, and later, others found them to be written by others. One reason this may have happened was that because many consider him Wales’ greatest poet, he was given special status in this regard. That’s how people could have incorrectly attributed the works of similarly gifted contemporaries to him.
Although from a noble family, Dafydd wasn’t known to be a member of a poetry guild as was often customary at the time. He wrote only in Welsh using “cynghanedd,” a complicated system of sound arrangement and rhyme within one line of verse. Some historians believe Dafydd ap Gwilym died in 1350 of the Black Death, though there isn’t proof of this. He may have lived until 1360 or later.
Here is one of his beautiful poems.
The Winter
Across North Wales
The snowflakes wander,
A swarm of white bees.
Over the woods
A cold veil lies.
A load of chalk
Bows down the trees.
No undergrowth
Without its wool,
No field unsheeted;
No path is left
Through any field;
On every stump
White flour is milled.
Will someone tell me
What angels lift
Planks in the flour-loft
Floor of heaven
Shaking down dust?
An angel’s cloak
Is cold quicksilver.
And here below
The big drifts blow,
Blow and billow
Across the heather
Like swollen bellies.
The frozen foam
Falls in fleeces.
Out of my house
I will not stir
For any girl
To have my coat
Look like a miller’s
Or stuck with feathers
Of eider down.
What a great fall
Lies on my country!
A wide wall, stretching
One sea to the other,
Greater and graver
Than the sea’s graveyard.
When will rain come?
by Dafydd ap Gwilym
This post was about famous Welsh authors.
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