Brittle With Relics
Richard King's latest book, Brittle With Relics, will be published by Faber in February 2022. He is author of The Lark Ascending (2019), a Rough Trade, Mojo and Evening Standard Book of the Year, Original Rockers (2015), shortlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize, and How Soon is Now? (2012), Sunday Times Music Book of the Year.
Brittle With Relics: A History of Wales, 1962–97
Paperback (Faber, 2023)
Hardback (Faber, 2022)
endorsements
‘Richly humane, viscerally political, generously multi-voiced, Brittle with Relics is oral history at its revelatory best: containing multitudes and powerfully evoking that most remote but also resonant of times, the day before yesterday.’ David Kynaston
‘A testament to the brutal circumstances that bonded the communities of Wales into a new polity for the twenty-first century.’ Gruff Rhys
‘Brittle with Relics is hanes y Cymry — the history of the people. Like a jolt to the heart to wake you up from a deep sleep.’ Gwenno Saunders
‘A phenomenal community of contingent voices. An essential telling of Welshness that contains a powerful reflection of Englishness, too.’ Emma Warren
A landmark history of the people of Wales during a period of great national change
Published 2022
There is no present in Wales,
And no future;
There is only the past,
Brittle with relics.
from ‘A Welsh Landscape’, R. S. Thomas
In the closing third of the twentieth century, Wales experienced the simultaneous effects of deindustrialisation, the subsequent loss of employment and community cohesion, and the struggle for its language and identity. These changes were largely forced upon the country, whose own voice, rarely agreed upon within its borders, had to fight to be heard outside of Wales.
Brittle with Relics is a history of the people of Wales undergoing some of the country's most seismic and traumatic events: the disasters of Aberfan and Tryweryn; the rise of the Welsh language movement; the Miners' Strike and its aftermath; and the narrow vote in favour of partial devolution.
Featuring the voices of Neil Kinnock, Rowan Williams, Leanne Wood, Gruff Rhys, Michael Sheen, Nicky Wire, Sian James, Welsh language activists, members of former mining communities and many more, this is a vital history of a nation determined to survive, while maintaining the hope that Wales will one day thrive on its own terms.
Reviews
‘This book eloquently rejects the erasure of memory and experience; the result is a work of history whose stories feel as if they are still unfolding.’ John Harris ― Guardian
‘Superb… deeply-moving… A thought-provoking and superbly-edited book, very balanced, with lots of points of view represented.’ Roger Lewis ― Daily Telegraph
‘Brittle With Relics is nuanced, passionate and reflective, conveying a very Welsh blend of fatalism and hope.’ Rhian E. Jones ― History Today
‘A gritty oral history… Rousing.’ ― Observer
‘[A] compelling, energetic and revealing book… King has both chosen and marshalled his cast of voices very well, often meeting those at the very heart of events… unofficial, lively, animated, opinion-charged stuff… These are the times through which many of us have lived brought to pulsing life so that we can better understand our own. It’s like eavesdropping on the past.’ ― The National
‘Fascinating… for a modern social history of a nation beset by cultural fissures Brittle With Relics covers impressive ground.’ ― Buzz Mag
‘Richard King is acutely attuned to the importance of voice and being heard. This is a strikingly determined amplification of voice by means of oral history.’ Angela Graham ― Irish Times
‘A fascinating, deeply important, episodic and discursive oral history… putting his finger on real pivot points in recent Welsh history.’ Pamela Petro ― Caught By The River
Extract on the Independent Long Read
