The Life of Rebecca Jones

A poetic work of fiction on the one hand, an autobiography on the other, The Life of Rebecca Jones is a powerful, meditative work on one family's passage through the twentieth century. In the early years of the last century, Rebecca is born into a rural community in the Maesglasau valley in Wales; h... Les mer

A poetic work of fiction on the one hand, an autobiography on the other, The Life of Rebecca Jones is a powerful, meditative work on one family's passage through the twentieth century. In the early years of the last century, Rebecca is born into a rural community in the Maesglasau valley in Wales; her family have been working the land for a thousand years, but the changes brought about by modernity threaten the survival of her language, and her family's way of life. Three of her siblings are afflicted with a genetic blindness, and it is they who have the opportunity to be educated elsewhere and to find work, while Rebecca and her remaining brother maintain the family farm amidst a gradual influx of new technologies, from the waterpipe to the tractor and telephone, and ultimately to television. Rebecca's reflections on the century are delivered with haunting dignity and a simple intimacy, while her evocation of the changing seasons and a life that is so in tune with its surroundings is rich and poignant. The Life of Rebecca Jones has all the makings of a classic, fixing on a vanishing period of rural history, and the novel's final, unexpected revelation remains unforgettable and utterly moving.

Angharad Price was born near Caernarfon. A novelist, critic and translator, she has taught at Swansea Univeristy and at Cardiff University, and is now lecturer in Welsh at Bangor University. The Life of Rebecca Jones is her second novel. Lloyd Jones' novel Mr Cassini was shortlisted for the Wales Book of the Year award. Lukk