Library of Wales: The Alone to the Alone

Gwyn Thomas was born into a large and boisterous family in Porth, in the Rhondda Valley, in 1913. After a scholarship to Porth County School he went to St Edmund Hall, Oxford, where he read Spanish. Mass unemployment and widespread poverty in South Wales deepened his radicalism. After working for the Workers’ Educational Association he became a teacher, first in Cardigan and from 1942 in Barry. In 1962 he left teaching and concentrated on writing and broadcasting. His many published works of fiction include The Dark Philosophers (1946); The Alone to the Alone (1947); All Things Betray Thee (1949); The World Cannot Hear You (1951) and Now Lead Us Home (1952). He also wrote several collections of short stories, six stage plays and the autobiography A Few Selected Exits (1968). He died in 1981.

'The condemnation of capitalism comes over loud and clear, yet it's so resolutely low-key as to resemble a Welsh Last of the Summer Wine.' The Guardian