Water Robert Southey delicate sketches of hard lives

delicate sketches of hard lives caught between the provisional quality of language and the permanence of things

An old man waiting

Mahmoud Shukair

is the issue’s Guest Writer

is the author or translator of forty books

Water Robert Southey delicate sketches of hard livesAn ecological disaster has left Wales an island. People struggle for survival day after day. This gripping novel, with strong parallels with Cormac McCarthys The Road, is set on a remote lake side farm, Dolfrwynog, in north Wales, where we are introduced to a family living a basic life following a worldwide crisis. The mother, Elin, has turned her back on the world, unable to cope with its hardships, the cold, the poverty. Uncle Wil is aging and the