News Archive

Oxfam Bookfest with Deborah Kay Davies and Fflur Dafydd

Tuesday 14 July, 6.30 pm - 8.00 pm
Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff (Seligman Room)

Academi presents both the big 2009 Welsh Prize-winners who join Hay Festival Director Peter Florence to celebrate their awards and discuss their work

6.30 pm – 7.00 pm
Deborah Kay Davies talks about her mesmerising story collection Grace, Tamar and Laszlo the Beautiful, published by Parthian, which won the Wales Book of the Year Award in June. Set in the eastern valleys of South Wales from 1970 to the present, Grace, Tamar and Laszlo the Beautiful tells the story of two sisters, Grace and Tamar, their volatile childhood, disruptive coming of age and dubious maturity. By turns moving, hilarious and terrifying and often all three at once, it is an unusual collection in that each story is complete in its own right, but also forms part of a continuous and powerful sequence. Part fantasy, part social history, these are dark, universal tales about how utterly strange it is to learn to be human.

7.15 pm – 8.00 pm
Fflur Dafydd talks about her novel Twenty Thousand Saints which won the Oxfam Emerging Writers Award at the Hay Festival in May. 'Fflur Dafydd's first English-language novel is set during one hot summer on Wales's mystical Bardsey Island, as past and present intersect painfully when the resident community is joined by a medley of incomers. The poet Mererid seeks a tranquil writing space away from her controlling boyfriend. Local curiosity Sister Vivien apprehensively prepares to host a conference of fellow hermits. Deian, an archaeologist who spent his youth on Bardsey until the mysterious disappearance of his mother, needs urgently to uncover past secrets. Vivien's son Iestyn has recently been released from prison, straight into the arms of flirty ecologist Elin. Filming all of this is Leri, an ambitious documentary-maker, whose project has a double edge hidden from her assistant and lover, Greta. It's a wild, exhilarating read. Dafydd controls her troupe of players without once dipping into farce.' Guardian.

All profits go to Oxfam

Tickets available by phone on 0870 990 1299
They can also be bought on the door
and from the local Oxfam Bookshop:
36 St Mary Street
Cardiff CF10 1AD
Tel: 029 2022 2275

Click here to visit the Oxfam Bookfest website.