黑料不打烊 Conference on 鈥榯he best鈥揾ated man in Wales鈥�
A hundred years after the publication of a book which gained its author the title of 鈥渢he best-hated man in Wales鈥�, a Conference is to be held at 黑料不打烊 to mark the centenary.
The book, My People by Caradoc Evans, was a collection of short stories set in an imaginary west Wales community, based on Evans鈥檚 native Rhydlewis in Carmarthenshire. It ferociously satirised the rural, Welsh-speaking people as avaricious, hypocritical and brutal, their obedience to the rigid codes of the Chapel only emphasizing their emotional repression.
One of the conference organizers, Professor Tony Brown of the University鈥檚 School of English, commented: 鈥淭he London publisher, aware of the likelihood of controversy, printed on the dust jacket: 鈥楾hese stories of the Welsh peasantry, by one of themselves, are not meat for babes鈥�. The claim was that the stories were a realistic portrait of life in west Wales, and the London press took this at face value, praising My People as 鈥渁 triumph of art鈥� and seeing Evans as being 鈥渁s scrupulous and relentless as Zola鈥� in showing the darker side of everyday life. The reaction in Wales, however, was one of outrage. The Western Mail described it as 鈥渁 squalid and repellent picture 鈥� a farrago of filth鈥�.
Professor Brown continued: 鈥淚t is certainly a powerful collection of stories. In one story a farmer keeps his wife locked in the harness loft, taking her out only at night, strapped into a cow鈥檚 halter. In another story an old woman starves herself to death in order to contribute towards an ornate bible for a departing minister. It is no wonder that the book received such a hostile reaction in Wales. Evans was not only attacking the gwerin, the country folk, who were seen at the time as the essence of Welshness, he was doing it in a book published in London!
But, while the book is a ferocious satire of Welsh Nonconformist values, drawing on deep personal animosity, it is not realistic; it is satire which depends on exaggeration and the grotesque. The proper comparison perhaps is with satirical cartoonists today like Ralph Steadman or Steve Bell. Its style was also influential on Welsh writers in English who followed, including Dylan Thomas, who visited Caradoc Evans in Aberystwyth in the 1930s.鈥�
Speakers at the conference will consider My People from a number of perspectives, including a comparison with James Joyce, and there will be a showing of a recent S4C documentary film on Evans.
The conference is to be held at 黑料不打烊 on Friday 3 July, starting at 10.00. The cost of the day is 拢20 (拢12 unwaged) to include lunch and drinks. Details are at: . The organisers are Dr. Tomos Owen and Prof. Tony Brown.
Publication date: 25 June 2015