The theme of War and its contradictions runs through NWR #109, including an intriguing memoir about a Welsh-American GI by Peter E Murphy, and a searing short story by Daniel Jones about life after Afghanistan.
There’s also a hard-hitting essay by John Barnie – ‘The Sentimental Poppy’ – which argues that the War To End All Wars has been hi-jacked by tasteless nostalgia and is simply the last hurrah of British imperialism. One to ponder, at a time when the new leader of the Labour Party has promised to wear a white poppy this November at the Cenotaph.
New Welsh Review offers it’s usual high standard of poetry this issue with work by Polly Atkin, Sara Backer, Claire Booker, Philip Burton, James Davey, David Foster-Morgan and Stav Poleg. For a taster of each of the poems, click on: www.newwelshreview.com//article.php?id=1061
Love him or hate him, Caradoc Evan’s highly controvertial short-story collection ‘My People’ still divides a nation, one hundred years after its first publication. Huw Lawrence’s essay dispassionately dissects these gripping stories – vitriolic parody of Welsh villagers by one of their own, or dark moral fables on universal themes? How complex the creative mind can be.
And on a lighter note, there’s a hilarious short story – ‘My Bukowski’ by Crystal Jeans – which really does take the stuffing out of sexual fantasy!
To buy of copy of New Welsh Reader (issue 109) or to find out how to submit your work to the magazine, click: www.newwelshreview.com
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