The Man Who Went into the West: The Life of R.S. Thomas
The award-winning life story of Wales national poet and vicar R.S. Thomas is “a biography touched by genius.” (Craig Brown, Mail on Sunday)

R.S. Thomas is widely considered as one of the twentieth-century’s greatest English language poets. His bitter yet beautiful collections on Wales, its landscape, people and identity, reflect a life of political and spiritual asceticism. Indeed, Thomas is a man who banned vacuum cleaners from his house on grounds of noise, whose first act on moving into an ancient cottage was to rip out the central heating, and 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.

“A masterpiece.” —Daily Express

“A striking, vivid and tender reading of the man . . . Excellent.” —Observer

“Riotiously funny.” —Rowan Williams, Sunday Times

“It is precisely Byron Rogers’ darkly comic sense of the ridiculous that melts the frost from the head of R.S. Thomas and humanizes a remote and bleakly beautiful writer.” —The Times

“A chatty, disorderly but extremely good [biography] . . . A wonderfully comprehensive picture of the man.” —Daily Telegraph

“As revealing an account of a severely private person that anyone could hope to achieve.” —Alan Brownjohn, Times Literary Supplement

“Engagingly high-spirited and daring.” —Andrew Motion, Guardian Book of the Week

“Charming and deftly written. . . . A very funny book.” —Literary Review

“As readable and rounded a life of the man as could be written.” —Tablet

Winner of the James Tait Black prize for biography
"1119738455"
The Man Who Went into the West: The Life of R.S. Thomas
The award-winning life story of Wales national poet and vicar R.S. Thomas is “a biography touched by genius.” (Craig Brown, Mail on Sunday)

R.S. Thomas is widely considered as one of the twentieth-century’s greatest English language poets. His bitter yet beautiful collections on Wales, its landscape, people and identity, reflect a life of political and spiritual asceticism. Indeed, Thomas is a man who banned vacuum cleaners from his house on grounds of noise, whose first act on moving into an ancient cottage was to rip out the central heating, and 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.

“A masterpiece.” —Daily Express

“A striking, vivid and tender reading of the man . . . Excellent.” —Observer

“Riotiously funny.” —Rowan Williams, Sunday Times

“It is precisely Byron Rogers’ darkly comic sense of the ridiculous that melts the frost from the head of R.S. Thomas and humanizes a remote and bleakly beautiful writer.” —The Times

“A chatty, disorderly but extremely good [biography] . . . A wonderfully comprehensive picture of the man.” —Daily Telegraph

“As revealing an account of a severely private person that anyone could hope to achieve.” —Alan Brownjohn, Times Literary Supplement

“Engagingly high-spirited and daring.” —Andrew Motion, Guardian Book of the Week

“Charming and deftly written. . . . A very funny book.” —Literary Review

“As readable and rounded a life of the man as could be written.” —Tablet

Winner of the James Tait Black prize for biography
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The Man Who Went into the West: The Life of R.S. Thomas

The Man Who Went into the West: The Life of R.S. Thomas

by Byron Rogers
The Man Who Went into the West: The Life of R.S. Thomas

The Man Who Went into the West: The Life of R.S. Thomas

by Byron Rogers

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Overview

The award-winning life story of Wales national poet and vicar R.S. Thomas is “a biography touched by genius.” (Craig Brown, Mail on Sunday)

R.S. Thomas is widely considered as one of the twentieth-century’s greatest English language poets. His bitter yet beautiful collections on Wales, its landscape, people and identity, reflect a life of political and spiritual asceticism. Indeed, Thomas is a man who banned vacuum cleaners from his house on grounds of noise, whose first act on moving into an ancient cottage was to rip out the central heating, and 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.

“A masterpiece.” —Daily Express

“A striking, vivid and tender reading of the man . . . Excellent.” —Observer

“Riotiously funny.” —Rowan Williams, Sunday Times

“It is precisely Byron Rogers’ darkly comic sense of the ridiculous that melts the frost from the head of R.S. Thomas and humanizes a remote and bleakly beautiful writer.” —The Times

“A chatty, disorderly but extremely good [biography] . . . A wonderfully comprehensive picture of the man.” —Daily Telegraph

“As revealing an account of a severely private person that anyone could hope to achieve.” —Alan Brownjohn, Times Literary Supplement

“Engagingly high-spirited and daring.” —Andrew Motion, Guardian Book of the Week

“Charming and deftly written. . . . A very funny book.” —Literary Review

“As readable and rounded a life of the man as could be written.” —Tablet

Winner of the James Tait Black prize for biography

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781845137571
Publisher: Quarto Publishing Group USA
Publication date: 12/20/2022
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 352
File size: 2 MB

About the Author

Byron Rogers is a Welsh journalist, essayist and biographer. He has contributed to The Times, the Sunday Telegraph and the Guardian, and was once a speech writer for the Prince of Wales. He is also author of seven books published by Aurum, including: An Audience With an Elephant, one of several collections of his journalism; The Man Who Went into the West, a critically acclaimed biography of the iconic twentieth century Welsh poet, R. S. Thomas, which was awarded the James Tait Black Prize for Biography in 2007; and The Last Englishman, a biography of the quintessential Englishman and celebrated novelist J.L. Carr. Me: The Authorised Biography, was published in 2009. His most recent book is Three Journeys. He currently lives in Northamptonshire and Carmarthen.
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