At the centre of Stuart Evans's ambitious and enthralling novel is Michael Caradock, a well-known writer whose life has ended violently on an isolated Welsh island. The circumstances of his death are mysterious, but then his whole life and work are subjects of controversy. Are his work and death connected, and if so, on what level?

Cymeriad canolog nofel swynol Stuart Evans yw Michael Caradock, awdur cyfarwydd a laddwyd yn ffyrnig ar ynys bellennig yng Nghymru. Y mae dirgelwch ynghylch union amgylchiadau ei farwolaeth - ac y mae amheuaeth yn codi ynglŷn â'i holl fywyd a'i waith. Tybed a oes cysylltiad rhwng ei fywyd a'i farwolaeth?

This fabulous 1977 classic might be long, dense and demanding, but it’s also seriously absorbing and often drily humorous. I’d rank it alongside, say, the works of John Fowles (whose Daniel Martin came out the same year) and Umberto Eco for its ambitious reach and unashamed erudition, and it shares the central concept and conceit of A.S. Byatt’s Possession, though predating it by close on twenty years.

As he approaches middle age, successful fiction writer and essayist Michael Caradock seeks solace and seclusion at an isolated house on the beautiful estuary of Glanmor. It is an unexpected return to a Wales he has claimed to despise and which he fled as soon as he finished school, heading first to Oxford’s ivory towers and then on to the literary world of London. Caradock has a brilliant, if troubled, mind and has achieved sufficient literary status to give rise to numerous books, articles, television and radio programmes, and even an official biography – an industry that burgeons when he is found dead in his home.

The multi-voice narrative − comprising extracts from Caradock’s fiction and essays; criticism and analysis of his oeuvre; snippets of TV and radio documentaries, and commentaries by his friends and acquaintances − is consummate. So enthralling and convincing, in fact, that I found myself wanting to read the books written by and about this entirely fictitious author. You want to get to know Michael Caradock just as you might want to get to know a real person. The former is patently impossible, but perhaps the latter is, as well: one of the book’s central themes is precisely “the unknowableness or irreducibility (...) of the human individual”.

The Caves of Alienation is an extraordinarily beautiful and intelligent novel that I would recommend without hesitation − thank goodness it’s been re-issued for those of us who missed it first time round.

Suzy Ceulan Hughes

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.