Autobiographies

by R.S. Thomas

English (translation)Original Welsh

Genres: Poetry, Nonfiction, Biography

192 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Ronald Stuart Thomas (1913-2000) (otherwise stylised as R.S. Thomas) was a Welsh poet and Anglican priest who was noted for his nationalism, spirituality and deep dislike of the anglicisation of Wales.

Reviews

[Aneirin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jason Walford Davies' translations of RS Thomas' autobiographical prose. They're given here as Former paths, The Creative Writer's Suicide, No-one, and A Year in Llŷn. Walford Davies has done a good job in making them available.

It's not quite as interesting for what isn't said as is but there are things RS Thomas seems to wish keep tucked out of the readers' sight. Nothing here is a patch on his poetry, of course, but perhaps the context is a little lost in the translation that here we have one of the foremost British poets writing in English beginning to express himself yn Gymraeg, after learning it as an adult, while poetry in a language other than English would (he insisted) remain beyond him.

[Domhnall · Rating 3 out of 5]

A few stabs at autobiography by one of the very best poets but they don't take off, they don't do him justice and I admit I stopped halfway through. The time is better spent with his poems.

[Justin Griffiths-Bell · Rating 2 out of 5]

While he was certainly a world class poet, his talents as a writer of prose were, on this evidence, limited. For those who take an interest in the myth of RS, this collection (two essays and two short autobiographical works) is useful in confirming a number of prejudices that have grown up around him.
Others who are bound to enjoy this book are fans of Vladimir Nabokov's unreliable narrators. Thomas unwittingly achieves the same effect Nabokov does with skill. The grandstanding of some of the most banal and trivial elements of his life has created deep gaps and silences through which the true nature of his being seem to howl on every page.

[Giles Denmark · Rating 3 out of 5]

for lovers of welsh, birds, nature, and poetry. he is a better poet than writer.