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ABRILLIANT treasure trove of new Welsh novels, from hard-hitting crime to soap opera dramas, and voyages of discovery to unloved vampires, promises to enthral and delight the widest audience.
First on the list comes the third collection of tales by Rhys Hughes, the celebrated teller of the strange short story. Stories From a Lost Anthology (Tartarus Press, pounds 27.50) may be somewhat expensive, but a marvellous read all the same.
As was evident in his earlier collections, Worming the Harpy and The Smell of Telescopes, Hughes's plotting and puns are frequently outrageous, but somehow, through a strong but warped internal logic, all is made probable, even believable.
Many of the tales in the latest volume are set in Wales, although they may not describe the country as the official guidebooks would have it.
Italo Calvino once said he dreamed of writing the kind of stories that, lost to the world for an unknown number of years, are found in the attic of an abandoned house. Rhys Hughes, poking in the same roof-space, has beaten him to it.
Suffused with the particular flavour of atticness after which Calvino yearned, Stories from a Lost Anthology is a new collection of more than 20 clever and extremely funny stories, although, of course they've been mouldering in the attic for an unspecified period.
Have you ever wondered what happens in the rooms above a Welsh pub? Or to a vampire when his polarity is reversed? And how would you kidnap Dylan Thomas, half a century...