MARY CONWAY revels in a powerful reminder that human lives are not defined by physical perfection
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Stirring call to arms in fight for a free Wales
Gwyn Griffiths reviews Glyndwr: To Arms by Moelwyn Jones
PAUL DONOVAN recommends the fine performances in this account of the pre-war meeting between the US president and the British king
TECLYN AROD relishes an intimate celebration of jazz improvisation that mixes local and national musicians
The missing sister, the vengeful WAG, cruise ship claustrophobia, and reanimated Avengers
Three great releases of lost concerts by Duke Ellington Orchestra, John Taylor & Stan Sulzman, and Joe Henderson
To rescue Kahlo from the clutches of the corporate art market, we need to acknowledge the overt and covert political dimensions of the work, demands GAVIN O’TOOLE
Glyndwr: To Arms by Moelwyn Jones (Y Lolfa £7.99)
THIS is the second in Moelwyn Jones’s trilogy of novels on the life of celebrated Welsh hero, military genius and guerilla warrior Owain Glyndwr, whose military techniques, it’s been claimed, were a model for Che Guevara and Fidel Castro.
The narrative is seen through the eyes of Glyndwr’s court poet Gruffudd ap Caradog, protege of Iolo Goch, one of Wales’s finest bards in the late medieval period. While closely following the historical evidence, Jones gives an admirable portrayal of the importance of the poet in Welsh court society as entertainer, confidante and PR man, a role similar to that of poets in Ireland and Iceland and the troubadours of southern France.
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