Publisher's Synopsis
First published in Welsh in 1961, Philip Mitchell's 1995 translation, the first complete translation in English, captures all the vibrancy, nuance and pathos of Prichard's magnificent prose. Narrated in the first person, this deceptively simple, lyrical novel starts out as a boy's exuberant view of his world, set against a backdrop of appalling deprivation during the First World War. As the boy, with his friends Huw and Moi, comes of age, the assumed sanity and certainty of their world begins to fall apart and the story builds to an excruciating climax, as shocking as it is profound.