Author Heralded as “Welsh Irvine Welsh” is a Hit in America

A Welsh author who was described in the men magazine Red Handed as “Wales’ answer to Irvine Welsh” has tasted success out of his native Wales. Cardiff Based Llwyd Owen’s first English novel Faith Hope and Love received a starred review in America’s Publishers Weekly. Within three months of publishing the book Alcemi, Y Lolfa’s literary fiction imprint, have had to reprint due to the demand from the US.

Garmon Gruffudd on behalf of Y Lolfa said,

“The book has sold more copies in the US than in Britain. Llwyd’s gritty ground-breaking urban thrillers in Welsh have cerinaly raised eyebrows over the past few years drawing a younger audience to read Welsh fiction. It’s great to see his first attempt in English getting the praise and sales he deserves.”

Faith Hope and Love is an adaptation of Llwyd Owen’s second Welsh novel that won him the Welsh book of the year award in 2008. He will be publishing his fifth Welsh novel Un Ddinas Dau Fyd (One City Two Worlds) in March. Faith Hope and Love, Alcemi, is priced at £9.99

Selected quotations from critics


"[Starred Review]*. Scalding... [this] savage indictment of Britain's welfare programs... packs real emotional punch. Owen unflinchingly reveals how easy it will be to 'rage, rage, against the dying of the light'." --Publishers Weekly, Starred Review


“A well-paced and tightly plotted novel that holds a magnifying glass to the middle classes to highlight their dark underbelly. Full of memorable characters and containing a powerful message, the author has created an unconventional thriller that will linger long in the memory.” --Lloyd Jones


“Deftly plotted and pitch-perfect in its pacing... as with any good thriller or tragedy, we watch, mesmerised, as the circle closes... should bring [Owen] the wider readership and acclaim he deserves.” --Suzy Cellan Hughes, New Welsh Review

"Peppered with contemporary references, the intricately-woven narrative is alive with the pitch perfect voices of a host of characters... an affecting and haunting tale." - Wales Literature Exchange

"Not unlike the Mike Leigh of Secrets and Lies, who points out the black holes in family life. An outright talent and natural storyteller." – Taliesin

“Fast becoming Wales’s anwser to Irvine Welsh” – Red Handed

“A remarkable and intriguing read that shouldn't be missed” – Midwest Book Review

Faith, Hope and Love - Llwyd Owen

“Well paced, tightly plotted...[Owen] holds a magnifying glass to the middle classes to highlight their dark underbelly.... an unconventional thriller that will linger long in the memory.” - Lloyd Jones, McKitterick winner Alun Brady is a bit of a mummy’s boy: he is facing his 30th birthday and still lives in his parents’ cushy, middle class suburban Cardiff home. But when his mischievous, self-educated, warm grandfather Paddy makes his deathbed in their spare bedroom and pleads with Alun to help him die earlier than nature will let him, Alun’s makes a decision that turns his world and his values upside down. Upon his release from jail for euthanasia, Alun’s world looks a lot different. His parents have since died and an affair with his brother’s wife prior to his spell inside, leaves him alone, without a family, and readjusting to a new life of poverty on the streets of Cardiff. Surrounding himself with ‘friends’ from Cardiff’s underbelly, Alun find himself embroiled in a crime, with tragic consequences. Shifting in time and cutting across the social classes of Cardiff, Faith, Hope and Love is a superbly plotted, pacey, urban thriller, brilliantly evoking the city of Cardiff, and authentically exploring notions of memory and identity. Here, translated and adapted by the bi-lingual author Llwyd Owen, the original Welsh-language version of Faith, Hope and Love was winner of the Welsh Book of the Year, 2007. The novel, Llwyd Owen’s first one in English, has been selected as Book of the Month for June in Wales’ independent bookshops. Faith, Hope and Love will be launched in Cardiff at Gwdihw bar, Guildford Crescent, at 7.30pm, with readings, late bar and music from The Gentle Good and The Garden of Edam. Llwyd Owen is an award-winning Welsh and English-language fiction author born in Cardiff in 1977. His rising cult following in Wales stems from his lively use of street language and his exploration of some of society’s less visible characters – prostitutes, pimps, and criminals, to name a few. As well as publishing four highly-acclaimed Welsh language novels, he is also a published poet and photographer and has presented his own television documentary on S4C on the Cardiff art scene in 2008. His home town of Cardiff, where he currently lives with his wife and daughter, provides the inspiration for a lot of his work. When he is not writing, he works as a part-time translator. Available from 13/05/2010