A book of obituaries has been published to celebrate the lives of 75 eminent Welsh people who have contributed significantly to life in Wales during the last few decades.

An essential supplement to any history of modern Wales, Welsh Lives: Gone but not forgotten consists of obituaries written by the prolific Meic Stephens that first appeared, for the most part, in the pages of The Independent between 1999 and 2012.

Obituaries are about life, not death, says Meic Stephens. I think that the title, Welsh Lives: Gone but not Forgotten, sums up what I want to convey: that the people gathered in the book are remembered for their lifes work and that, in this special sense, they live on in the Wales and world they helped to shape.

Meic Stephens is a pre-eminent obituarist in contemporary Wales. Welsh Lives is the authors second book of obituaries, the first of which was published as Necrologies in 2008 and consisted of 72 obituaries, from Welsh writers to graphic designers.

Stephens new collection is even more capacious and various than the first volume, in that it mixes creative people with politicians, sportsmen, civil servants, film critics, broadcasters, arts administrators, doctors and judges, all of whom may be deemed to have made a contribution to Wales and Welsh life.

Welsh Lives holds up a mirror to Wales's culture, and includes short biographies of Stuart Cable, Ray Gravell, Hywel Teifi Edwards, Huw Ceredig, Iris Gower, Margaret John, Raymond Garlick, Dic Jones, Hafina Clwyd, Orig Williams and many more. Five Bretons and seven English people closely associated with Wales have also been added to the collection.