Book description
Byron Rogers' new biography, of the Welsh poet and vicar R. S.
Thomas, has been hailed as a masterpiece, even as a work of genius, by
reviewers from Craig Brown to the Archbishop of Canterbury. The
biography's greatest strength, however, which should ensure it a wide
sale in paperback, is, as reviewers were surprised to find, that
Rogers has made of someone thought of as a wintry, austere and
unsociable curmudgeon and extremely funny book Â- Â riotously' so, in
Rowan Williams' words. Here is a man who banned Hoovers from his house
on grounds of noise, whose first act on moving into an ancient cottage
was to rip out the central heating, whose attempts to seek out more
authentically Welsh parishes only brought him more into contact with
loud English holidaymakers. To Thomas's many admirers this will be a
surprising, sometimes shocking, but at last humanising portrait of
someone who wrote truly metaphysical poetry.
Byron Rogers' previous books include An Audience with an Elephant, The
Bank Manager and the Holy Grail, The Last Englishman and The Last Human
Cannonball. All are published by Aurum. He lives in Carmarthen and
Northamptonshire.  Â
