Richard Gwyn (Welsh writer) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Richard Gwyn is a Welsh writer of fiction, non-fiction and poetry. His works have been translated into many languages and he has had successful relations with the art and music communities of Europe.

After studying anthropology

Anthropology

Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...

at the London School of Economics

London School of Economics

The London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...

, he began to travel extensively across Europe, living for periods in Greece and Spain, working on fishing boats and as an agricultural labourer. Following a serious illness, he returned to Wales, where he took a PhD in Linguistics. His experiences of travel catalyzed his interest in writing, and he published several books of poetry and prose poems. Over the same period he also wrote two books on health, concerned with the ways that language and culture influence our understanding of illness, an area he researched for almost a decade. He currently teaches at Cardiff University

Cardiff University

Cardiff University is a leading research university located in the Cathays Park area of Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom. It received its Royal charter in 1883 and is a member of the Russell Group of Universities. The university is consistently recognised as providing high quality research-based...

, where he is Director of the MA program in creative writing. He has translated poetry from Spanish and Catalan and reviews books for The Independent

The Independent

The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...

.

His first work of fiction, The Colour of a Dog Running Away

The Colour of a Dog Running Away

The Colour of a Dog Running Away is a novel by the Welsh novelist Richard Gwyn published in 2005.-References:...

, set in Barcelona, has received critical acclaim for its quality and originality. His second novel, Deep Hanging Out, set in Crete during the closing stages of the Cold War

Cold War

The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...

, was published in 2007 and is loosely based on the myth of the Minotaur

Minotaur

In Greek mythology, the Minotaur , as the Greeks imagined him, was a creature with the head of a bull on the body of a man or, as described by Roman poet Ovid, "part man and part bull"...

. His work has been described as being concerned with the discarding of grand narratives and fixed meanings in order to pursue a more fleeting and fragmentary representation of the world.

Poetry

Defying Gravity (1992)
One Night in Icarus Street (1995)
Stone Dog, Flower Red (1995)
Walking on Bones (2000)
Being in Water (2001)

Non-fiction

Communicating Health and Illness (2002)
Discourse, the Body and Identity (2003)

External links

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