This beautifully written story by Richard Llewellyn is set in a Welsh mining village in the early 1900s. Events are seen through the eyes of Huw, a child at the book’s beginning but well into his manhood at the story’s close.
The reader is easily transported to another time and place. Huw Morgan’s world is a world of strong family bonds and close-knit village community. Life is centred around family, the life of the Chapel, and the coal-pit to which the village owes its livelihood.
In the good times life is plentiful. Huw’s world is dominated by family bonds and the beautiful valley. But with change comes division, and the ever-growing menace of the slag-heaps. Huw’s family and community are to be transformed forever. Many of Llewellyn’s themes are as relevant today as they are for his characters. Themes of unionisation, of religion, of environmental desecration and generational conflict to name but a few.
From its musical prose, to its well-developed characters, to its universality of themes … All of these qualities make How Green Was My Valley a book not to be missed.