"It is the Tale of American Wales,or South Wales or Modern Wales, since 1945...."

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Other titles by Dai Smith

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Dai: Dreams are as actual as day to day living but  elusive in any representation of that living. Writing history is another way of dreaming up that past life by imposing a narrative or analytical order which the simultaneity of living,in past and present and in dreams and waking, implicitly denies. So,I wanted to find a form to tell an underlying truth,one to be found in the rhythm of dreams,about the people and places which hold me and which I have long attempted to reveal in my historical writings. That form was a fictive one, for a deeper story.
 
AmeriCymru: How would you describe the novel for an American audience?      

Dai: It is the Tale of American Wales,or South Wales or Modern Wales, since 1945, and the intermeshing of the global and the local in various lives fixed by this space over time. My novel is a kaleidoscope which the passage of years shakes to rearrange the shards of individual, yet related lives. Something was available and someting has been irretreivably lost.Then,in keeping with my tragic theme,I use the bewildering variety of genres and language,of cultures and attitudes, which expressed those lives,at times irrespective of intentions or desire. We move at a pace from the blackly comic to gothic grotesque, from the noir of the thriller to the mundane entrapment of manners and customs.The intention is to subvert, by plot and tonality, any easy expectations at every turn. Just as it was in the lives of the dreamers I here imagine.

AmeriCymru:  How significant was the immediate post war period in Welsh and indeed, British history? What role does the memory of that period play in the novel?

Dai: South Wales, politically and socially and culturally, was centre stage in British life for almost two decades after the Second World War. It was the very embodiment of the Phoenix which was set to emerge, and almost did, from the ashes of Depression and War. Think Aneurin Bevan and the NHS, Richard Burton and Stanley Baker, Gwyn Thomas and Dylan Thomas, and a supporting cast of hearts, minds and dreams. But, of course, as an economy based on coal and steel the Star was dying from within, even as its glory burned brightest. This, too, is my subject,and the contrast between the wild aspirations of the beginning of the twentieth century and of this more circumspect one.

AmeriCymru: There is much in ''Dream On'' to suggest a decline in political idealism since the miner''s strike of 84-85. Do you think this is true?

Dai: Yes. But one world has passed, and this new one needs a different approach, albeit if some human values must be constant.

AmeriCymru: Care to tell us something about your other recent title ''In the Frame: Memory in Society 1910 to 2010''?

Dai: That book, a compound of Memoir and History, was the bridge I constructed to let me cross over as a writer of fiction. It is a one way bridge.

AmeriCymru: What was the book that most influenced your fiction writing — and why?

Dai: The Great Gatsby. Because it remains the quintessential Fable of Modern Life, set to shape and direct all aspects of existence. And because it is gorgeous and indeed great. I never tire of reading it.

AmeriCymru:  What are you working on now?

Dai: Well, I have just  edited two volumes called "Story", to be the definitive volumes of short stories written in English from Wales.  It will appear in the Library of Wales Series, of which I am General Editor, in the autumn. And a sequel to "Dream On", but set further back in time, is irrepressibly bubbling up.

AmeriCymru:  Any final messages for the readers and members of AmeriCymru?

Dai: That we are closer, for all our differences, than some may ever care to know.