Margins
The Green Hollow book cover
The Green Hollow
2018
First Published
4.64
Average Rating
112
Number of Pages

In 1966 a coal slag heap collapsed on a school in south Wales, killing 144 people, most of them children. Poet Owen Sheers has given voice to those who still live in Aberfan, the pit village in which tragedy struck, and using their collective memories has created a striking work of poetic power. Sheers set out to paint a portrait not just of what happened, but also of what was lost. What was Aberfan like in 1966? What were the interests of the people, the social life, the sporting obsessions, the bands of the day? What was the deeper history of the place? Why had it become the mining village it was, and what had it been before the discovery of coal under its soil? Perhaps most significantly, what was Aberfan like today? The Green Hollow is a historical story with a deeply urgent contemporary resonance: a story of what can happen when a community is run by a corporation. It is also a story known along generational rather than geographic borders. Based on the BBC One production, The Green Hollow is a beautifully rendered picture of a time and place - and a life-altering event whose effects are felt to this day.

Avg Rating
4.64
Number of Ratings
81
5 STARS
72%
4 STARS
22%
3 STARS
5%
2 STARS
1%
1 STARS
0%
goodreads

Author

Owen Sheers
Owen Sheers
Author · 13 books
OWEN SHEERS is a poet, author and playwright. His first novel, Resistance, was translated into ten languages and adapted into a film. The Dust Diaries, his Zimbabwean nonfiction narrative, won the Wales Book of the Year Award. His awards for poetry and drama include the Somerset Maugham Award for Skirrid Hill, the Hay Festival Medal for Poetry and Wales Book of the Year Award for Pink Mist, and the Amnesty International Freedom of Expression Award for his play The Two Worlds of Charlie F. His most recent novel is I Saw a Man, which was shortlisted for the Prix Femina Etranger. He lives in Wales with his wife and daughter. He has been a New York Public Library Cullman Fellow and is currently Professor in Creativity at Swansea University.
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