Media Release
Contact: Cambria Futura Ltd
9 Victoria Park Road West, Cardiff, Wales, CF5 1EZ
Email: info@future.wales
Website: https://future.wales
Welsh nationalist sci-fi classic A Week in Future Wales by Islwyn Ffowc Elis receives its first translation into English
(Cardiff, Wales) Cambria Futura Ltd is pleased to announce the publication of the first English-language edition of science fiction novel, A Week in Future Wales, now available in paperback on Amazon and for upcoming release in eBook format.
Elis shows two visions of a future path for Wales, as relevant now as it was in its first Welsh-language publication in 1957. One path is a utopian vision of a peaceful and technologically advanced independent Wales, where Welsh language and culture have flourished and prospered. The other is a dystopian collapse where only English language and culture survive in the backward and warlike hinterland now known as Western England.
Elis’s love for Wales and its culture pervades this novel, and weaves through both the possible futures he describes. This work is partly a rollicking tour and celebration of Welsh cities, countryside and towns, and partly a cry of despair and protectiveness for those places and way of life they foster.
“And while they hesitated and argued, the English flooded in, the forests were planted, and the valleys drowned. The last of the Welsh woke up too late. Their land and language and nation were gone.”
Islwyn Ffowc Elis was born in 1924 in Wrexham and was raised in Glyn Ceiriog, a valley and former slate-mining village in north Wales, speaking Welsh as a first language. He studied Welsh and philosophy at University College of North Wales in Bangor, and left school as a conscious objector in the 1940s. He later returned and earned his degree in Theology at Aberystwyth. He completed his pastoral studies at Bala, and there met Eirlys Owen, who would become his wife. He became a Presbyterian minister in 1950, left in 1956 to focus on writing, and in 1959 turned to politics.
Elis wrote Wythnos Yng Nghymru Fydd (A Week In The Wales of The Future) in 1957, four years after his most famous work, Cysgod Y Cryman (The Shadow Of The Sickle, 1953) and a year before Blas Y Cynfyd (A Taste Of The Old World, 1958). Through these works, he examined some of the central tensions of the 20th century: capitalism and communism, urban and rural, nationalism and globalism.
Elis’s original text has been translated into English by Stephen Morris, whose previous work includes his acclaimed 2015 translation of Daniel Owen’s great work, “Rhys Lewis”.
Cambria Futura Ltd is a partnership formed by Stephen Morris, Geraint Lewis, Gweirydd ap Gwyndaf, and Danielle Pepin, for the purpose of publishing this work.
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The partners of Cambria Futura were brought together through their appreciation of A Week in Future Wales, and a desire to make this work available to a broader audience.
Stephen Morris chose to translate A Week in Future Wales because he found Elis’ vision of what Wales could become absolutely inspiring. With the time when it is set drawing ever closer, he loves the idea of a free, prosperous and independent Wales, at ease with itself and its neighbours, and wanted to play his part in making it a reality.
By profession he is a physicist who works on microchips and dabbles in politics. He has also received acclaim for his translation of Daniel Owen’s “Rhys Lewis”.
Stephen is Welsh and lives in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, which he refers to as “East Wales” to tease his wife, who is from Shrewsbury.
Geraint Lewis discovered A Week in Future Wales through the webcomic XKCD while looking for books on time-travel. He found Stephen’s website and unpublished translation, and based on the strength of the story wanted to help bring the book to a broader audience. As an astronomer and Professor of Astrophysics, his research hunts for the dark side of the Universe, the matter and energy that completely dominate the Universe we inhabit. He is the author of three books on physics, cosmology, and our place in the multiverse. Geraint is from Neath and the Dulais Valley in Wales, and now lives in Sydney, Australia.
Danielle Pepin reads philosophical and utopian works, and when camping in Bala in 2019, she searched for utopias set in Wales and found this untranslated work. After eventually finding some online samples of Stephen’s translation, she offered to help move the work toward publication. She is inspired by the classic utopian themes of Elis’ vision such as pacifism, egalitarianism, pastoralism, community, and progress through science. Danielle is American, and lives in London, UK.
Gweirydd ap Gwyndaf is an entrepreneur who read Wythnos yng Nghymru Fydd as a teenager, over twenty years ago. He discovered A Week in Future Wales online and connected with Stephen through the future.wales website and Stephen’s translation project. He shares Stephen’s goal of an independent Wales and joined the partnership to support this endeavor.
OTHER MATERIALS AND LINKS:
A Week in Future Wales 