The Writers of Wales Database

BROWN, TONY

Ty Gwyn, Siliwen Road, Bangor, Gwynedd LL57 2BH
Tel:  01248-382102 (University)
Email: els015@bangor.ac.uk  

Born and brought up in Cardiff, Tony Brown studied English at Cardiff University and the University of Leicester, before being appointed to the English department at what was then the University College of North Wales, Bangor. He is now Professor in the School of English, Bangor University. He teaches mainly in late-nineteenth- and twentieth-century British and American literature; tutoring Welsh writing in English at both undergraduate and postgraduate level. Tony has published extensively in the field of Welsh writing in English, especially on the writing of R.S. Thomas and Glyn Jones, and on the English-language short story in Wales. His study of R.S. Thomas in the University of Wales Press’s “Writers of Wales” series (2006) was short-listed for the Roland Mathias Prize in 2007. 

Tony Brown is also co-director (with Jason Walford Davies) of the R.S. Thomas Study Centre at Bangor University. The Centre houses a unique collection of Thomas’ own publications, including rare editions, as well as a comprehensive collections of critical material on Thomas, interviews, press articles, and audio-visual material. The Centre’s recent acquisitions include a substantial collection of  manuscript material, much of it unpublished, typescripts and also the journals and sketch books of Thomas’ wife, the painter Elsi Eldridge. Tony Brown and Jason Walford Davies are currently at work on a volume of R.S. Thomas’s uncollected poems.

As well as his own writing, Tony Brown was the founder editor of Welsh Writing in English: A Yearbook of Critical Essays (eleven volumes, 1995-2007), the first refereed academic journal in the field. He is currently Secretary of the Association for Welsh Writing in English and a member of the Grants to Publishers Panel of the Welsh Books Council. Tony is a Fellow of Academi.

Selected Publications:
Writers of Wales: R.S Thomas (University of Wales Press, 2006)

Contributed to:
Pe Medrwn yr Iaith: Detholiad o Ryddiaith R.S. Thomas [If I Knew the Language: A Selection of the Prose of R.S. Thomas] (co-editor) (Christopher Davies, 1988)
Edward Carpenter and Late Victorian Radicalism (editor) (Cass, 1990) 
The Page’s Drift: R.S. Thomas at Eighty (contributor) (Seren, 1993)
Fire Green as Grass: Studies of the Creative Impulse in Anglo-Welsh Poetry and Short Stories of the Twentieth Century (contributor) (Gomer, 1995)
The Collected Stories of Glyn Jones (editor with introduction and notes) (University of Wales Press, 1999)
Nations and Relations: Writing Across the British Isles (co-editor) (New Welsh Review, 2001)
The Dragon Has Two Tongues by Glyn Jones (editor with introduction and notes) (University of Wales Press, 2001)
Rhys Davies: Decoding the Hare (University of Wales Press, 2001) 
Beyond the Difference: Welsh Literature in Comparative Contexts (University of Wales Press, 2004)
Moment of Earth: Poems and Essays in Honour of Jeremy Hooker (Celtic Studies Press, 2007)

Articles in Journals:
"‘Eve’s Ruse’: Identity and Gender in the Poetry of R.S. Thomas”, English  49 (Autumn 2000): 229-250
“The Ex-centric Voice: The English-Language Short Story in Wales”, North American Journal of Welsh Studies,  1.1 (Winter 2001)
“‘Love’s Depths’: R. S. Thomas’s Poems to his Wife”, Renascence: Essays on Values in Literature 60: 2 (Winter 2008): 131-159
“Glyn Jones and the Uncanny”, Almanac: Yearbook of Welsh Writing in English 12 (2008): 89-114




Writers of Wales: R.S Thomas (University of Wales Press, 2006)

Tony Brown provides an introduction to R. S. Thomas' life and work, as well as new perspectives and insights for those already familiar with the poetry. His approach is broadly chronological, interweaving life and work in order to evaluate Thomas' poetic achievement, in addition to presenting a full discussion of Thomas' poetry, and its development over time.

To purchase this title from gwales.com, please click on its front cover