One Moonlit Night

The actual title is Un Nos Ola Leuad – this is a book that was originally written in Welsh. It’s a gem too – one of those stories that’s told from the perspective of a young boy, in this case, one who lives in a small village. But though those tales are often sentimental about both youth and the virtues of a small community, One Moonlit Night is too well-written to fall into that trap. Not only does it show that this sort of community can have the same problems as anywhere else, but the young narrator seems to become something quite different as narrative progresses... Caradog Pritchard was a journalist by trade, but he had also been the youngest ever winner of the National Eisteddfod, and he wrote (says this book’s biographical note) "four prize-winning odes". This isn’t a surprise, because this book has a lyrical quality – a poetic narrative with a certain clever ambiguity – and that this aspect has survived translation is greatly to the book's credit. [Dennis J. Murphy]