Kate Roberts (author)
| Kate Roberts | |
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Kate Roberts
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| Born |
13 February 1891 Rhosgadfan, Caernarfonshire, Wales |
| Died | 4 April 1985 (aged 94) Denbigh, Wales |
| Occupation | Author, novelist, political activist |
| Literary movement | Welsh-language literature |
| Notable works | Traed mewn cyffion (Feet in chains) |
Kate Roberts (13 February 1891 – 4 April 1985) was one of the foremost Welsh-language authors of the twentieth century. Known as Brenhines ein llên ("The queen of our literature"), she is known mainly for her short stories, but she also wrote novels. Roberts was also a prominent Welsh nationalist.
Roberts was born in the village of Rhosgadfan, Caernarfonshire (Gwynedd today) where her father (Owen Roberts) was a quarryman in the local slate quarries. She graduated in Welsh at the University College of North Wales, Bangor and then trained as a teacher. She then taught in various schools in south Wales.
Roberts met Morris T. Williams at Plaid Cymru (the Welsh nationalist party) meetings, and later married him in 1928. Williams was a printer, and eventually they bought the printing and publishing house Gwasg Gee (The Gee Press), Denbigh, and moved to live in the town in 1935. The press published books, pamphlets and the Welsh-language weekly Y Faner (The Banner), for which Roberts wrote regularly. After her husband's death in 1946 she carried on working the press for another ten years.
She remained in Denbigh after her retirement and died in 1985. Alan Llwyd's 2011 biography of Roberts used diaries and letters to shed fresh light on her private life and her relationship with Morris. Cae'r Gors, the quarryman's cottage in which Roberts was born and brought up, has been taken into the care of Cadw and turned into a museum open to the public.
It was the death of her brother in the First World War that led Roberts to writing. She used her literary work as a means of coming to terms with her loss.
Her first volume of short stories appeared in 1925 O gors y bryniau ("From the swamp of the hills") but perhaps her most successful book of short stories is Te yn y grug ("Tea in the heather") (1959), a series of stories about children. As well as short stories Roberts also wrote novels, perhaps her most famous being Traed mewn cyffion ("Feet in chains") (1936) which reflected the hard life of a slate quarrying family. In 1960 she published Y lôn wen, a volume of autobiography.
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