BLACK AND READ - AR EIN SILFFOEDD
image: photographer: Seth Herald - Protesters hold a "die-in" in Columbus, Ohio, as they gather peacefully to protest the death of George Floyd at the state Capitol on June 1
novels / nofelau/ gofiannau / memoirs
Always Another Country: A Memoir of exile and home by Sisonke Msimang - £11 pbk - in stock - recommended by Pen’rallt as a sparklingly engaging and informative read.
Born in exile, in Zambia, to a guerrilla father and a working mother, Sisonke Msimang was constantly on the move. Her parents, talented and highly educated, travelled from Zambia to Kenya and Canada and beyond with their young family. Always the outsider, and against a backdrop of racism and xenophobia, Sisonke developed her keenly perceptive view of the world. In this account of a young girl’s path to womanhood, Sisonke interweaves her personal story with her political awakening in America and Africa, her euphoria at returning to the new South Africa, and her disillusionment with the new elites. Confidential and reflective, Always Another Country is a search for belonging and identity: a warm and intimate story, and a testament to sisterhood and family bonds.
Described as one of the most exciting contemporary female black voices in literature. Now based in Perth, Australia, Sisonke Msimang is Programme Director for the Centre for Stories, a social enterprise organisation
interview with activist Sisonke Msimang
Heaven My Home by Attica Locke - £8 pbk - in stock
Nine-year-old Levi King knew he should have left for home sooner; instead he found himself all alone, adrift on the vastness of Caddo Lake. A sudden noise - and all goes dark. Ranger Darren Mathews is trying to emerge from another kind of darkness; his career and reputation lie in the hands of his mother, who's never exactly had his best interests at heart.
Now she holds the key to his freedom, and she's not above a little blackmail to press her advantage. An unlikely possibility of rescue arrives in the form of a case down Highway 59, in a small lakeside town. With Texas already suffering a new wave of racial violence in the wake of the election of Donald Trump, a black man is a suspect in the possible murder of a missing white boy: the son of an Aryan Brotherhood captain.
'Political crime fiction of the highest order'
Attica Locke is the author of Bluebird, Bluebird winner of the CWA Steel Dagger; Pleasantville, winner of the 2016 Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction. Black Water Rising, was nominated for an Edgar Award and shortlisted for the Orange Prize; The Cutting Season, winner of the Ernest Gaines Award for Literary Excellence. She worked on the adaptation of Celeste Ng's Little Fires Everywhere. Attica is a native of Houston, Texas.
Barddoniaeth / poetry
Robert Robinson - dub poet, musician
Winner of T.S. Eliot Prize 2019
Poets: Eric Ngalle Charles, Ifor ap Glyn and Mike Jenkins collaborated on this anthology reflecting on their time in Eric’s birth home, Cameroon.
Natalie Diaz - language activist
former professional basketball player
in stock - £7.50 pbk
“Look closely at the present you are constructing. It should look like the future you are dreaming.”
novels / nofelau/ gofiannau / memoirs
Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor - £7 pbk
a classic story of a girl growing up in the deep South. Set in Mississippi at the height of the American Depression, this is the story of a family's struggle to maintain their integrity, pride and independence against the forces of a cruelly racist society. 'We have no choice of what colour we're born or who our parents are or whether we're rich or poor.
Mildred D. Taylor (1943 - )
was born in Mississippi and grew up in Ohio. She worked in Ethiopia with the Peace Corps before enrolling at the School of Journalism at the University of Colorado, where she helped develop a Black Studies programme.
That Reminds Me by Derek Owusu - £12 hbk
K is sent into care before a year marks his birth. He grows up in fields and woods, and he is happy, he thinks. When K is eleven, the city reclaims him. He returns to an unknown mother and a part-time father, trading the fields for flats and a community that is alien to him. Slowly, he finds friends. Eventually, he finds love.
A story of one young man, from birth to adulthood, told in fragments of memory. It explores questions of identity, belonging, addiction, sexuality, violence, family and religion. It is a deeply moving and completely original work of literature from one of the brightest British writers of today.
Owusu, of Ghanaian heritage, was raised in foster care by a white family in a Suffolk village until he was eight. In 1997 he move to North London to live with his biological parents.
That Reminds Me is his debut novel and Winner of the Desmond Elliott Prize 2020.
ACROSS GENRES, GENERATIONS AND CULTURES
Novels ‘not necessarily fiction’ - all currently in stock - £8
“‘I wonder what I’d have done if I hadn’t found Tomi Adeyemi’s, Children of Blood and Bone [in the teens/YA free books window at Pen’rallt during lockdown], now I’ve bought the sequel, Children of Virtue and Vengeance.’ ”
Amelia Gentleman, The Windrush Betrayal, Exposing the Hostile Environment - new hdbk - £15 - background by the author
Minna Salami, Sensuous Knowledge: A Black Feminist Approach for Everyone - new, hadbk - £12
Akala, Natives: Race & Class in the Ruins of Empire - new pbk - £8.99 - Akala talks about his book
Layla F. Saad, Me and White Supremacy - new, board cover - £14.99 - interview with Layla at audible
£15 new, hb - Raja Shehadeh, author of Palestinian Walks, takes us on a series of journeys around his hometown of Ramallah. Set in a single day— the fiftieth anniversary of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza
£10 new, hardback - to read an extract click on the Foyles link below, but please come back to us if you wish to buy. Special offer of this plus ‘Gifted’ £15
£8 new, pbk - Freedom by numbers . . .Nikita Lalwani's story of a maths prodigy, Gifted, illuminates the plight of the children of immigrants
£7.99 new, pb - 'Teeming with drama and compelling code-cracking action, this WWII thriller is driven by the lives of three young people determined to make their mark on the war effort, and by the life-affirming relationship between fifteen-year-old Louisa and the elderly woman she’s employed to look after.
we’re adding books to our shelves every week - don’t forget to check
Our ethos
We are in the fortunate position to be able to choose what subject areas to stock and what to avoid, based on both our own and local interests. We sell books - new and secondhand - by good publishers, with authoritative texts that reflect the richness of books - books that inform and inspire readers and writers and strike a chord with ourselves and our customers.
We made the choice not to run a car over 10 years ago. So, we source our second hand books using public transport, carrying rucksacks or pulling our trusty shopping trolley to help minimise our carbon footprint, selecting each book individually to suit our stock as we go.
And, with the physical bookshop currently closed receiving a refresh and an overhaul we take orders by ‘phone and email, dispatch by post, deliver locally by foot and by cycle and local people can collect.
Thank you to all our wonderful customers and supporters. Cadwch yn iach!