Twenty Thousand Saints

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Writing The Novel

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Twenty Thousand Saints () | Fflur Dafydd | Y Lolfa

Viv and Delyth have taken their young sons to live permanently on the island in , now it is - ten years after Wales voted for devolution. Delyth has disappeared and Viv's son, Iestyn, has been acquitted after 10 years in prison for Delyth's presumed murder. On the island already are Deian, Delyth's son, who is an archaeologist employed for the summer to do a survey, a writer in residence, Mererid, and a film crew, Leri and Greta, who are making a documentary.

A supporting cast of ecologists, nuns, boatmen and island farmer-managers provide humour and drama in the hothouse conditions of isolated island as the real story of Delyth's disappearance is revealed and island inhabitants — old and new — are forced to revaluate their relationships, beliefs and ambitions.

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The English novel is nearly twice the length, has some different characters and the thriller element was introduced for an English audience. I think I was very conscious of an English-language readership needing a, kind of, different structure in order to appreciate the story of Bardsey because I'm, kind of, trying to deal with the island as a kind of microcosm of Wales and it does have a political subplot and for all those things to impact on the reader I thought that the best method to go about it was through creating this thriller storyline. I've always been fascinated with disappearances and if you have a disappearance on an island that is tiny where there's basically nowhere to disappear to I thought that would be an interesting thing to play with and my interest in the archaeological side of things had increased and I thought well actually maybe I was missing a trick with the first novel that there was no mystery about discovering bones and thinking about what could be unearthed in that sense.

And I'd written the first chapter more or less exactly as a kind of a parallel of the Welsh-language version but then something struck me that actually this needs to happen at a different pace in English and once I'd started to think about that disappearance the story gathered momentum and it became double the size of the Welsh-language version and I am pleased that I put that thriller storyline in because I think it's given it another element that it's not just, you know, I think the Welsh-language book is a sort of reflections on Bardsey whereas Twenty Thousand Saints is a structured novel, a structured thriller that uses the island as the backdrop that says important things hopefully about Wales but I think it's easier to draw your English-language readership into that as well because I'm talking about Wales and the Welsh language, I thought that the best way to do that would be through a thriller storyline.

When writing Twenty Thousand Saints , Fflur Dafydd was acutely aware of the layers of geography, history, languages and literature which underpin a sense of place:. Bardsey becomes a character in different guises in different people's lives.

For Viv who wanted to stay on the island with Delyth, the island becomes a space of remembrance in which Delyth is both presence and absence:. For the two boys, Deian and Iestyn, who grew up on the island, it is a contradictory space of childhood security, edgy exploration, and a kind of frustration at their isolation.

Iestyn collects and hoards dead animals, while Deian imagines the land itself as capable of spawning a 'strange hybrid grass child with a luxurious green boat and his own brown eyes.

The last to arrive is the sinister Iestyn. Already inhabitant on Bardsey is a silent nun, Sister Vivian, a forlorn archaeologist named Deian and Leri, a beautiful, sensual woman that all seem to admire.

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Accompanying each of them are their secrets — their darkest secrets, which the Island itself intends to out. Mischief and madness are found in all the places on the small, secluded Bardsey Island of this novel. Each one of them share all with the reader but nothing with each other, reflecting both the vast expanse of nature and the condensed community on Bardsey. They all have their own space but each is confined. Twenty Thousands Saints is a dark, comedic thriller that explores intense bonds between people and their loved ones.

It is also a gripping read. May 15, Shakirah rated it did not like it.

Book review – Twenty Thousand Saints by Fflur Dafydd

I forced myself to read this book and I nearly went cross eyed with the effort. It was dead boring. Aug 07, Richard Staines rated it liked it. It was an interesting read. I read it after seeing the writer's TV series 'Parch'. The one thing both of these have in common is I didn't like the endings. Kathryn rated it really liked it Mar 30, Sydney rated it it was amazing Jan 06, Judith Paterson rated it it was ok Jan 02, Hazel Braund rated it really liked it Feb 28, Suzanne Ashworth rated it it was amazing May 21, Alis Hawkins rated it it was amazing Nov 10, Jaff rated it liked it Aug 19, Romy Wood rated it it was amazing Jul 30, Math rated it liked it Sep 12, Hannah Brimson rated it really liked it Nov 14, Kirsty rated it really liked it Jan 19, Marc rated it liked it Aug 16, Jan Nevill rated it really liked it Mar 13, Rachel Trezise rated it liked it Jan 26, Karen Amanda Davies rated it really liked it May 11, Alex Rowlands rated it liked it Mar 28,