The independent Welsh press Melin Bapur has published Scribblertown by Mary Burdett-Jones, her English translation of her own Welsh-language novel Llanllenorion.
This is a novel about a publisher from London who moves to Wales to test the depths of his roots. In a seaside university town not unlike Aberystwyth, recently-designated a UNESCO City of Literature, he seeks guidance from a range of characters: a scholar who is completely dedicated to his work; the woman who has also sacrificed a great deal in becoming his companion; the professor who is now a public intellectual; the actress who is his wife; the artist whose work are to be seen in the houses of the town. As we turn the pages we learn about the relationship of these characters to each other in the past and gain a change in perspective as we read about the dreams of the main character.
Scribblertown is a work Mary has been working on for about a decade. Professor Bobi Jones saw an early draft and described it as ‘a very substantial work. It draws the reader onwardsforward by the unexpected strangeness and its varied course.’
This is Mary Burdett-Jones’s first novel, but she has already published a volume of her poetry in Welsh, Lluniadau (2020), together with a volume of Welsh translations of the German poems of Selma Merbaum, who died in the Holocaust. Poetry plays a leading role in Scribblertown as well, as a number of Mary’s poems and translations are woven into the text in a unique way.
Mary said: ‘The title of the book for years was “Symphony” until I remembered the title of a number of essays on the literary figures of Llanidloes by the mid-nineteenth-century journalist Matthew Lewis on whom my husband Philip Henry Jones has done research. They describe a town where there was a thriving Welsh-language literary life, “Llanllenorion”, literally “Town of Litterateurs”. When thinking about how to render this in English, I liked the suggestion of my publisher Scribblertown.’
Adam Pearce, editor and owner of Melin Bapur said: ‘It is a privilege to have this important work entrusted to us, a work which is, in my opinion, quite unique in Welsh literature. I have never come across a book which combines styles and even literary forms in this way. Scribblertown is a challenging, experimental work, but it is a testimony to Mary’s obvious talent as a novelist – and as a poet! It’s not a “difficult” novel’. On the contrary: the story grips you straight away. It’s incredible to think that this is her first novel – but we hope not the last!’
Both Scribblertown and Llanllenorion are available now from www.melinbapur.cymru for £9.99+P&P.