Books published by Parthian Books

Saints and Lodgers offers an introduction to the wide range of Davies's poetry which lies beyond his famous reputation. Here are hymns to the beauty of his native South Wales and to the natural world, poems in praise of lives lived on the margins and on the streets, drinking songs and songs of the sea.

At the heart of Country Dance is Ann Goodman, a young woman torn by the struggle for supremacy in her mixed blood, Welsh and English. This first-person account of passion, murder, and cultural conflict is set in the border country in the late 19th century, and the rural way of life is no idyll but rather a savage and exacting struggle for survival.

The seventh-most spoken language in the world,Bengali is home to some of the most distinctivepoetry ever written anywhere. Starting with thelater poems of Nobel Laureate RabindranathTagore, there has been a long and continuousline of modern poetry in the language.

A family already struggling is ung headlong apart from each other in grief....In this atmospheric novella, the mysterious Plankton Collector visits members of a family torn apart by grief and regret. He comes in different guises. For ten-year old Mary, he is Mr Smith who takes her on a train journey to the seaside. Her mother, Rose, meets him as Stephen, by her son's graveside. Rose's youngest, Bunny, encounters him as the gardener. For husband and father David, meanwhile, the meeting is with a love from his youth. And long-lost Uncle Barnaby takes the children for a week's holiday during which their parents begin a reconciliation.A wound will heal, and knit them back together....All visitors are manifestations of the Plankton Collector who teaches those he encounters the difference between the discarded weight of unhappy memories and the lightness borne by happiness recalled.'A brilliantly evoked examination of memory and innocence... delivers a kaleidoscope of compelling voices united by a spectral visitor, not from the heights, but the apparent depths. Haunting.' James Clammer, author of Why I Went Back'A delicate paean for coming together, full of understanding for the quirks and pitfalls and ultimate goodness in human nature.' Mavis Cheek'Cath Barton tells the story... with a lyrical voice that is very much her own. This beautifully structured novella leads the reader to a resolution that is both moving and deeply satisfying.' Francesca Rhydderch, author of The Rice Paper DiariesIn haunting, exquisite prose the author explores the disconnects that exist within families as each deals with the internal difficulties inherent in life as it progresses. Moments of happiness can be overshadowed by loss, yet it is the former that should be granted attention and treasured... In this short novella a world has been conjured that recognises the depths of unhappiness yet offers hope. It reminds that reactions when grieving are neither uniform nor prescriptive, but that individuals, once known, are never entirely lost. Jackie Law, @followthehens'As light and fleeting as a happy memory... caring and heart-warming... about people with memories we could all share. It will resonate deeply with anyone who has been through trauma. But anyone who has longed for happier, simpler times will find nostalgic memories becoming lighter too.' James Lloyd, The Cardiff Review'Utterly convincing... so that the reader steps easily into the story, watching the characters` lives unfold at close quarters, hoping and yearning with them. The last few sentences brought me to tears. We all need our own Plankton Collector.' Robin Walker, amazon.co.uk'Unusual and skillfully crafted tale... filled with sublime descriptive language that has left lasting images in my mind.' Clement, amazon.co.uk'Poetic... skilful... a heart-breaking picture of love, regret, loss and ultimate reconciliation. Thoroughly recommended.' Martin, amazon.co.uk'Effortlessly creates a heady mixture of mid-century real world and magical realism.' Sheesh, amazon.co.uk'There's a flow to the language which is like... rocking gently in a boat... the characters are drawn with such subtly, honesty, and compassion. Even though the central event of the book is coming to terms with death, it was... the quiet disintegration and equally quiet rebuilding of a marriage... that had me riveted.... a short, utterly original, very human, marvelous book.' H Hewett, amazon.com

This insightful and revealing collection of essays focuses on seven Welsh women who, in a range of imaginative ways, resisted the status quo in Wales, England and beyond during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

After the funeral, a grieving son starts reading the diary his dead father had kept during the Second World War. As he turns each page, searching for a trace of the man he remembers, a portrait of an individual unfolds; a figure made both strange and familiar through the handwritten observations, the yearnings and the confessions.

The first full-length biography of Brenda Chamberlain chronicles the life of an artist and writer whose work was strongly affected by the places she lived, most famously Bardsey Island and the Greek island of Hydra.

Threon, the Vagabond King, is torn from a life in the palace and forced to scrape a living on the streets. Meeting a witch of the underworld, a rebel soldier and a woman cursed by a god, he seeks retribution through a quest to reclaim his home and throne.

In a lonely house deep in the Black Mountains of south Wales, a man spends insomniac nights absorbed in the ancient texts left him by his mysterious aunt.

In The Moon is a Pill, a collection of the best of Ausra's poetry, translated by Rimas Uzgiris, the reader discovers the extent of the poet's social engagement, mixed with a swirl of psychedelia through an existential lens.

Continuing the Parthian New Welsh Short Fiction series, this work is an anthology of contemporary Welsh writing with 55 short stories from the best of new short fiction. Writers include Leonora Britto, Sian Preece, Anna Hinds, Alun Richards, Meic Stephens, John Sam Jones and Lloyd Rees.

From the very beginnings of Wales, its people have defined themselves against their large neighbour. Wales: England's Colony? shows, that relationship has not only defined what it has meant to be Welsh, it has also been central to making and defining Wales as a nation.

Blending the naturalistic and the fabulistic, these elusive, delicate stories fold fable and fairy tale into the everyday, domestic settings of kitchen, garden, car.

Eric Ngalle thought he was leaving Cameroon for a better life...Instead of arriving in Belgium to study for a degree in economics he ended up in one of the last countries he would have chosen to visit - Russia.Having seen his passport stolen, Eric endured nearly two years battling a hostile environment as an illegal immigrant while struggling with the betrayal that tore his family apart and prompted his exit.This painfully honest and often brutal account of being trapped in a subculture of deceit and crime gives a rare glimpse behind the headlines of a global concern.

Mae fan hufen ia yn stryffaglu i fyny'r allt trwy'r cenllysg. Rhed bachgen a merch ar ei hol a'i dilyn i gaddug eu dychymyg. Clywir eu lleisiau cyfareddol yn adrodd stori sy'n chwalu mur plentyndod ac yn atsian ar draws y blynyddoedd.Stori am gyfeillgarwch plant a sut y bygythir y cyfeillgarwch hwnnw yw Pijin. Dyma drasiedi rymus sydd ar adegau'n eithriadol ddoniol. Fel yn y Saesneg gwreiddiol mae'r ddwy iaith yn rhan anhepgor o wead stori am euogrwydd, am golli iaith a cholli diniweidrwydd ac am y math o gariad all oresgyn hyn i gyd.

The village of Tanygraig on the Welsh-English border is the setting for this passionate novel of love and its consequences. Beti, the beautiful and wilful daughter of a pub landlord, is pursued by two men: Llew, her aggressive, red-haired cousin, and Evan, the dreamy miller and would-be poet. She has to make a choice but it's not her future alone that depends on her decision. She and Tanygraig are positioned precariously on borders of class, nation, language, and changing times.In this enduring novel by Geraint Goodwin, first published in 1936, Wales is associated with tradition and stability, England connotes modernity and movement. Beti is conscious of living at a temporal border: 'The old way of things was ending; she had come at the end of one age and the beginning of another. Wales would be the last to go but it was going...'

In October 1957 Marlon Brando married an Indian actress called Anna Kashfi. He was thirty-three and at the pinnacle of his beautiful fame having recently won an Oscar for On the Waterfront.

In Cwmardy, Big Jim, collier and ex-Boer War soldier, and his partner Sian endure the impact of strikes, riots, and war, while their son Len emerges as a sharp thinker and dynamic political organizer.

In 1983, two University Professors looked slightly bemused as they scanned the shelves of the South Wales Miners' Library. One said to the other, 'Do miners read Dickens?' We seek to answer that question, and a little more besides.

Flame and Slag is Ron Berry's masterpiece. Set against the unspeakable horror of Aberfan, this remarkable 1968 novel follows the lives of lovers, Rees Stevens and Ellen Vaughan. Rees must discover and interpret a journal written by Ellen's father if all the fires of living on are not to fall into cold ash.

In seven prose pieces, this collection depicts the breakdown of human relationships among Anglesey characters who live in the shadow of a tower that throws its shadow over them.

The Burn Council Estate is doomed. Stranded on the outskirts of Ironopolis - nickname to a bygone industrial Middlesbrough - the estate is about to be torn down to make way for regeneration. For the future...

A miraculous true-life Second World War survival story that is being featured on the BBC's ONE SHOW (The show attracts on average a daily audience of 5 million viewers) with a ten minute dramatised documentary to be broadcast in early October 2018.