The Writers of Wales Database

OWEN, LLWYD

Website:www.llwydowen.co.uk
Email: llwydowen@yahoo.co.uk

Llwyd was born in 1977 and grew up in Cardiff. He attended Glantaf High School and studied for a degree in Communications at Bangor University. Since graduating in 1998 he has worked a wide variety of jobs, including bus driver, door-to-door salesman, warehouse lackey, press officer, television presenter and call-centre minion. When not writing fiction, he works as a translator.
The author won the 2007 Wales Book of the Year award for his novel Ffydd, Gobaith, Cariad (Y Lolfa, 2006), which he adapted into English and published as Faith Hope & Love through Alcemi in May 2010.

He has published five Welsh language novels to date with Y Lolfa, while his latest English language adaptation (The Last Hit) is published in weekly installments as a work in progress on his website, free for all to read. Llwyd lives in Rhiwbina, Cardiff with his wife and daughters.


Selected Publications:
Ffawd, Cywilydd a Chelwyddau (Y Lolfa, 2006)
Ffydd Gobaith Cariad (Y Lolfa, 2006)
Yr Ergyd Olaf (Y Lolfa, 2007)
Mr Blaidd (Y Lolfa, 2009)
Faith, Hope and Love (Alcemi, 2010)
Un Ddinas Dau Fyd (Y Lolfa 2011)

Faith, Hope and Love (Alcemi, 2010)

Reviews:

With respect to Faith, Hope and Love (Alcemi, 2010)

“Owen’s savage indictment of Britain’s welfare programs and its socialized medicine is strong stuff by itself, but it’s the tragic personal story of Alun as he spirals full of self-inflicted guilt toward an ironic, violent conclusion that packs the real emotional punch. Owen unflinchingly reveals how easy it will be to “rage, rage, against the dying of the light.”
Publishers Weekly USA

“An absorbing fable… enjoyable and pacey… providing a thoughtful take on what it means to be alive and how suffering can control and overwhelm you.”
Time Out London

“Shifting in time and cutting the social classes of Cardiff, Faith Hope and Love is a well-plotted, pacey, urban thriller evoking the city of Cardiff and exploring notions of memory and identity.”
South Wales Argus

Deftly plotted and pitch-perfect in its pacing. From the outset, the reader is invited to anticipate what comes next… The thrill lies… in the steady yet inexorable unfolding of events as Alun’s loyalties and sense of identity are alternately challenged, changed and confirmed… an unconventional thriller…. The plot is not typical of the genre, but the psychology at play most certainly is. As with any good thriller or tragedy, we watch, mesmerised and powerless, as the circle closes… Alun, of course, believes every time that what he is doing is right, not necessarily for himself but for the people he loves. And thus martyrs and tyrants are made… Faith, Hope & Love, with its pacey, often humorous surface gliding over deeper waters, should bring him the wider readership and acclaim he deserves.
Suzy Ceulan Hughes, New Welsh Review

“Wales’ answer to Irvine Welsh.”
Red-Handed Magazine

Faith, Hope and Love (Alcemi, 2010)

Alun Brady was a bit of a Mummy's Boy, stuck at home at 30 in the suburbs. When grandfather Paddy makes his deathbed in their spare room, he brings fresh air into Al's cushy number and makes Al face the hardest decision of his life. Later, just out of prison, Al's world seems almost empty. Haunted by his brother Will's perfect new family, Al seeks in dangerous new friends what he needs from his lost kin. Drawn into Cardiff's underbelly, events take a turn towards the tragic as he discovers he cannot break free of his own blood ties. This is an authentic urban thriller with a strong colloquial voice, stepping between social classes to say important things about memory and identity.

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