Welsh writing in English (Welsh: Llenyddiaeth Gymreig yn Saesneg), (previously Anglo-Welsh literature) is a term used to describe works written in the English language by Welsh writers.
The term 'Anglo-Welsh' replaced an earlier attempt to define this category of writing as 'Anglo-Cymric'. The form 'Anglo-Welsh' was used by Idris Bell in 1922 and revived by Raymond Garlick and Roland Mathias when they renamed their literary periodical ‘'Dock Leaves, as ‘'The Anglo-Welsh Review'’ and later further defined the term in their anthology Anglo-Welsh Poetry 1480-1980 as denoting a literature in which "the first element of the compound being understood to specify the language and the second the provenance of the writing". Although recognised as a distinctive entity only since the 20th century, Garlick and Mathias sought to identify a tradition of writing in English in Wales going back much further The need for a separate identity for this kind of writing arose because the term 'Welsh Literature' describes Welsh-language literature which has its own continuous tradition going back to the sixth century poem known as Y Gododdin.
Introduction
The phrase "Welsh writing in English" has replaced the earlier "Anglo-Welsh literature" because many Welsh writers in English have felt that the latter usage failed to give "Welsh status to Welsh people who, not speaking Cymraeg, nevertheless do not feel at all English". Welsh writers in English in the early twentieth century favoured poetry and the short story over the novel, with some notable exceptions. This was for two main reasons: in a society lacking sufficient wealth to support professional writers, the amateur writer was able to spare time only for short bursts of creativity and these forms concentrated linguistic delight and exuberance. Since the main market was London publishers, the early short stories tended to focus on the eccentricities – as seen from a metropolitan viewpoint – of Welsh rural life, though later work focused on life in the industrial valleys of South Wales. A genre of poetry also developed which consciously located itself in association with poetry in the Welsh language and this emphasis led some writers to question the term "Anglo-Welsh" and favour the alternative "Welsh Writing in English" as emphasising the Welsh provenenace rather than the English language. Recently the more neutral term "Anglophone Writing from Wales" has been employed
There is no final, clear definition of what constitutes a Welsh writer in English, or Anglo-Welsh author. Obviously it includes Welsh writers whose first language is English, rather than Welsh, such as Swansea born Dylan Thomas (1914–53) and novelist Emyr Humphreys, born in Prestatyn in 1919. But it also includes those born outside Wales with Welsh parentage, who were influenced by their Welsh roots, like London-born poet David Jones (1895–1974). Glyn Jones in The Dragon Has Two Tongues defines the Anglo-Welsh as "those Welsh men and women who write in English about Wales".
In addition, writers born outside Wales, who have both lived in as well as written about Wales, are often included, such as John Cowper Powys (1872–1963), who settled in Wales in 1935 and wrote two major novels, Owen Glendower (1941) and Porius: A Romance of the Dark Ages (1951), that have Welsh subject matter. In addition to using Welsh history and settings, Powys also uses the mythology of The Mabinogion. He also studied the Welsh language. Then there is the poet, teacher, and critic Jeremy Hooker (born 1941), who taught at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth from 1965 to 1984 and became deeply involved in writing about and teaching Welsh writing in English during this time, though he wrote only a few poems with Welsh subject matter. The Liverpool-born novelist James Hanley (1897–1985) lived in Wales from 1931 until 1963 and was buried there. Hanley published, Grey Children: A Study in Humbug and Misery (1937), a study of unemployment in industrial South Wales and three novels set in Wales. As one writer notes: "a widely debatable area of Anglo-Welsh acceptability exists". Saunders Lewis, the noted Welsh-language poet, novelist, dramatist, and nationalist, in fact rejected the possibility of Anglo-Welsh literature because English is the official language of the British state, affirming that '"the literature which people called Anglo-Welsh was indistinguishable from English literature". Ironically, Saunders Lewis was himself born in Wallasey in England to a Welsh-speaking family.