A volume of letters written by prominent poet and soldier Alun Lewis to Frieda Aykroyd. Their affair inspired some of the finest of his wartime poems. The letters throw fresh light on Lewis's passionate and troubled nature and the background to his literary output at a time when he was at the height of his creative powers.

Cyfrol o lythyrau a ysgrifennwyd gan y bardd enwog a'r milwr Alun Lewis at Frieda Aykroyd. Ysgogodd eu carwriaeth Lewis i ysgrifennu rhai o'i gerddi gorau adeg y rhyfel. Mae'r llythyrau yn dadlennu natur angerddol a chythryblus y bardd, a'r cefndir i'w gynnyrch llenyddol yn anterth ei rym creadigol.

The life of the Welsh poet, Alun Lewis, is well documented. Born in 1915, raised in Aberdare, south Wales, following an exemplary educational career, he recognised the urges inside him to become a writer, in particular a poet, at a very young age. He achieved success in publishing poems while he was still a student, but is best known as a war poet, a description he disliked, preferring to be known just as a poet and writer. A committed socialist and a pacifist, he viewed the signs of war in the 1930s with increasing gloom. In 1941 he joined the Royal Engineers and in 1942 was commissioned and assigned to the South Wales Borderers. After training they were posted to India in October 1942. He died while on active service against the Japanese, in Burma in March 1944.

Alun Lewis was devoted to Gweno, whom he married in 1941, to his family in Aberdare, and to Wales, often pining for its hills and valleys. From early adult life he suffered from disabling bouts of depression, which he fought doggedly, and many of his fellow soldiers were unaware of the depths to which his spirits sank. In 1943, recuperating from a broken jaw and dysentery, he stayed for a week at the home of Frieda and Wallace Aykroyd in the cool hills above Madras. In Frieda, also a poet, an avid reader and already familiar with Alun Lewis’s published work, he found a young, literary soulmate with whom he could discuss and share his writing and his wide-ranging reading and music interests. Their friendship developed into a close, loving relationship and, over the following eight months until his death, they corresponded weekly, sometimes daily, and met for a short holiday in Bombay in September 1942. Frieda Aykroyd kept and collated Alun Lewis’s letters to her and wrote a memoir as a preface to the collected letters. After her death, her children prepared the memoir and letters for publication in this book.

The memoir is a candid and comprehensive story of the eight months of his life that Alun Lewis shared with Frieda Aykroyd. The letters, published in full, with some photocopies of the actual letters in Lewis’s hand, give a remarkable account of life in the army in India, of Lewis’s emotions as he struggles with depression, love for his wife and family and love for Frieda and her family, and of the pressures of living and working in the hot, humid environment of wartime India. There are also many references to his writings, examples of the poems he wrote, and those he was trying to write, and to the books he was reading and his views of his contemporaries.

It is an absorbing and haunting read, which at times challenges the reader because of the element of intrusion into a person’s privacy, but the frank memoir and unabridged letters give a unique insight into the heart of this remarkable young Welsh poet.

Beryl Thomas

It is possible to use this review for promotional purposes, but the following acknowledgment should be included: A review from www.gwales.com, with the permission of the Welsh Books Council.

Gellir defnyddio'r adolygiad hwn at bwrpas hybu, ond gofynnir i chi gynnwys y gydnabyddiaeth ganlynol: Adolygiad oddi ar www.gwales.com, trwy ganiatâd Cyngor Llyfrau Cymru.