A collection of city-based short stories in Welsh, Porth is the first fiction for adults from author Luned Aaron, and a variety of life experiences are portrayed within this collection. One includes the heartbreaking account of a pregnant asylum seeker arriving in the city, while in another story the struggle to conceive is the focal point highlighting the difficulties and hope in equal measure.
There are many different voices, and the characters who inhabit each story are from very different walks of life – and parts of the world – but the common threads that feature at every stage are familial ties, fear, loneliness and hope.
Set in Cardiff, the familiarity offered from living in the city was appealing and often left me feeling like a fly on the wall while the subtle nuances to the interlinked stories provided a unique modern angle while also offering themes of the past. The prose drifts through the unique narrative voices in this emotive and hopeful collection; it’s no surprise that Porth was close to receiving the literary medal at the 2023 National Eisteddfod.
Porth, Luned Aaron (Y Lolfa)
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words RHIANON HOLLEY