Y Goeden Eirin
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Y Goeden Eirin (The Plum Tree) is a 1946 collection of six modernist Welsh-language short stories by John Gwilym Jones, which has been described as "a milestone in the development of the Welsh short story".[1] It introduced Freudianism and the stream-of-consciousness technique to Welsh literature. It was published in English translation as The Plum Tree and Other Short Prose (2004).
Contents of the English-language version, The Plum Tree and Other Short Prose (2004):
- The Craft of the Short Story
- Decline
- The Wedding
- The Plum Tree
- The Highest Cairn
- The Communion
- On the Mend
- The Steeping Stones
- Meurig
- Duty
- The Man from Groeslon
- Afterword [by Gwyn Thomas]
Publication history
When Jones submitted his Welsh-language short stories to Gwasg Gee, a small Denbigh publishing house run by Kate Roberts and Morris Williams, they at first rejected them, but later reconsidered their decision and published them under the title Y Goeden Eirin in 1946.[2]
Two of the stories were later anthologized in English versions. "Y Briodas", translated into English by Islwyn Ffowc Elis as "The Wedding", was included in Elis's and Gwyn Jones's Twenty-Five Welsh Short Stories (OUP, 1971), later reissued as Classic Welsh Short Stories (OUP, 1992).[3][4] The title-story of Jones's collection, "Y Goeden Eirin" (The Plum Tree), appeared in Meic Stephens's A Book of Wales (Dent, 1987) in a translation by Elan Closs Stephens.[3]
There is also an English translation by Meic Stephens of the complete Y Goeden Eirin together with extra material, including previously uncollected stories, an autobiographical sketch by Jones, the transcript of an interview in which Jones discussed the art of short-story writing, and a biographical and critical afterword by Gwyn Thomas. This book was published by Seren Classics in 2004 as The Plum Tree and Other Short Prose.[5]