This second volume culled from the Colin Edwards Archive of interviews
with Dylan Thomas' family, friends and colleagues made during the 1960s
covers Thomas' 'adult' life from his move, aged 20, to London to become
a professional writer to his death in New York 51 years ago. It is a
story which we think we know, but the archive sheds new ñ often
contradictory ñ light on a life which has been much mythologised.
Here are first hand accounts of the young Thomas in the pubs of
Fitzrovia with other writers and artists; of his trips to central Europe
and the Middle East, and to America. Here too is Thomas the rising
literary star; the broadcaster, the filmwriter, the dramatist, the
balancer of commissions and creativity. This is also the period of
Thomas in love; in marriage, and in love again; and of Thomas balancing
the books and making his way as best he could.
Throughout there is fascinating new material in the interviews, on which
editor David N. Thomas bases new critical essays on Thomas and painters;
on the women behind Polly Garter; the gestation of Thomas' masterpiece
Under Milk Wood; and, most rivetingly of all, on the circumstances of
Thomas' death in New York.
Formerly an academic and a senior manager, David N. Thomas is now a
freelance writer and researcher, living in Ciliau Aeron, west Wales. He
has published widely, including several books on the development of
communities. He lectures in a number of European countries, and has been
a Council of Europe Fellow.
