Planet 229
Eluned Gramich draws on her experience of accompanying her German father to his citizenship ceremony in Cardiff to reflect on the uncertain fate of EU nationals in the lead-up to Brexit, and also on the cultural and philosophical roots of citizenship itself. How do experiences of citizenship (and exile) differ around the world?
Read moreRachel Trezise joins Michael Sheen in his hometown of Port Talbot for a walk along Aberavon beach. They discuss what it is like to move between the worlds of Hollywood and radical Welsh socialism, and how to unite a disenfranchised and demoralised country.
Read moreFollowing widespread discontent with Wales’s travel infrastructure, folklorist Peter Stevenson contributes the second article in a new series of responses to stretches of Wales’s rail network. Read stories from this long-lost line of poverty, pilgrimage, fugitives, furtive behaviour in Pencader tunnel, and how the GWR were commodifying Welsh legends long before Visit Wales…
Read moreFrancesc Parcerisas on his anguish at the Spanish state returning to the vicious repression of Catalonia he experienced under the Franco regime. Remembering the underground poets who gave him hope as a youth, he argues that Catalan writers now have a responsibility to delve deep into their once-forbidden language to make their culture flourish again.
Read moreWriter Ciwanmerd Kulek tells the story of his Kurdish publisher, and how its hopes and hardships have run in parallel with the Kurdish independence struggle, leading up to the 2017 independence referendum, and its violent suppression. He describes how his experience of translating the Mabinogi into Kurdish led him to reflect on global hierarchies of power, and the potential of translation to create a zone of equality across cultures.
Read moreA short story by Diana Wallace, inspired by The Dream of Macsen Wledig from the Mabinogi. What are the stories of the women whose tongues were cut out by Kynan’s invading army, and how do they pass these stories on to their daughters?
Read moreA poem by Emily Blewitt
Read moreA poem by Jeremy Hooker
Read moreBridget Keehan draws on her experience of working with prisoners and visiting a relative in prison to give an insight into the appalling conditions in Welsh jails. She argues that concerns about the country becoming a ‘penal colony’ raise more fundamental questions about devolution and the criminal justice system, and the need to create a radically progressive approach to justice itself.
Read moreOur Welsh Keywords offers contemporary perspectives on the meaning of words in Welsh, inspired by Raymond Williams’ Keywords. In this issue, historian Steven Thompson traces the shifting meanings behind words associated with ‘anabledd’ (disability).
Read moreAndrew Green reviews the Royal Cambrian Academy’s Nova 2017 show of work by Welsh artists under 35. He’s impressed by its lively inventiveness, but argues that in an era marked by political and economic injustice the exhibition is missing a key ‘note of fury’.
Nova 2017 is showing at Aberystwyth Arts Centre until 1st April.
Read moreEleri Hedd James remembers the phenomenally prolific and perceptive writer, poet, critic, linguist and polymath Bobi Jones, who died in 2017, and his contribution to the Welsh language.
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