Glyn Jones (Welsh writer)
| Glyn Jones | |
|---|---|
Glyn Jones
|
|
| Born |
28 February 1905 Merthyr Tydfil, Wales |
| Died | 10 April 1995 (aged 90) Cardiff, Wales |
| Occupation | Author, poet, translator |
| Nationality | British |
| Genre | Literature, novel, poetry |
| Literary movement | Anglo-Welsh literature |
Glyn Jones (28 February 1905 – 10 April 1995) was a Welsh novelist, poet and literary historian, and an important figure in Anglo-Welsh literature. He served as both Chairman and President of the Welsh Academy's English-language section. In his study, The Dragon Has Two Tongues (1968), he discusses ways in which the period between the World Wars affected his generation of Welsh authors.
Glyn Jones was born in Merthyr Tydfil in 1905 into a Welsh speaking household, his father was a post office clerk and his mother a teacher. Despite Welsh being his family language, as with all mainstream education in Wales during the first half of the twentieth century, he was educated in English. Jones obtained a place at Cyfarthfa Castle Grammar School, and by the time he left secondary education he had all but lost his ability to speak Welsh fluently. In his later life, Jones re-taught himself the Welsh language, though his literary works were always in English. After leaving Cyfarthfa Grammar, he gained a place at St Paul's College in Cheltenham.
From an early age Jones was a devout Christian; his parents being Welsh Nonconformists. Jones attended Sunday School as a child and in his later life he was a member of Minny Street Congregational Chapel in Cardiff. His religious beliefs and his Welshness informed all his creative work, even when many of his contemporary authors rejected religion.
On leaving full-time education Jones found work as a teacher, leaving Merthyr to take up a post in Cardiff, where the poverty of his pupils profoundly disturbed him, and informed his political position as a Socialist. Although a Left-wing thinker, Jones was never a member of the Labour Party; in his later life he was sympathetic to the aims of Plaid Cymru. In 1935, he married Phyllis Doreen Jones, to whom all his books were dedicated. His earliest poetry was published in 1933 in The Dublin Magazine, and in 1935, on the suggestion of his friend Dylan Thomas, he wrote a collection of short stories, entitled The Blue Bed. The collection, which included tales located in undefined almost mystical locations, others of Welsh village life, comic and highly visual, received a remarkable critical assessment from reviewers in London. One of the tales from The Blue Bed, 'I was Born in the Ystrad Valley', a tale of an armed Communist insurrection, was born from his own experiences of life in the slums of Cardiff. His initial writings were heavily influenced by fellow Welsh author, Caradoc Evans, though The Blue Bed did not carry the harsh tones of Evans' work.
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