Thursday 30 November – 15:00-16:00
Mumbles Tabernacle, Mumbles, Swansea, SA3 4AR
This Writing Life: Dai Smith in conversation with Peter Stead about living and writing ‘Off the Track’.
In this absorbing memoir Dai Smith engages and entertains with a personal life and times of a writer who has illuminated the modern history of the people of South Wales.
‘From its first paragraph almost to its last, Smith’s precise, luxuriant prose style dazzles in its ability to simultaneously set off syntactical fireworks and marshal precisely into shape the considered thoughts of a lifetime’s intellectual curiosity and self-reflection.’ Dylan Moore, Nation.Cymru
Dai Smith was born in the Rhondda in 1945. He studied History at Balliol College, Oxford, and Literature at Columbia University, New York City. He was awarded a Ph.D. at Swansea University for a thesis on the South Wales Miners’ Federation, subsequently the subject of his book, with Hywel Francis, The Fed. He was the contributing editor to the series of essays A People and A Proletariat and published, with Gareth Williams, the prize-winning Official History of the Welsh Rugby Union, Fields of Praise. Through the 1980s and 1990s, he wrote and edited a number of innovative and provocative books and scholarly articles on the social and cultural history of modern Wales: notably, Lewis Jones, Aneurin Bevan and the World of South Wales and Wales: A Question for History. The latter was an extensively revised version of the book associated with six documentary films he wrote and presented under the title Wales! Wales? He went on to make a number of other films on the arts and popular culture, including most recently The Lost Pictures of Eugene Smith.
He became Editor BBC Radio Wales in 1993, and was Head of Broadcast (English) there from 1994 until 2000 when he was appointed Pro-Vice-Chancellor at the University of Glamorgan. He had held Lectureships since 1969 at the Universities of Lancaster, Swansea and Cardiff, where he was given a Personal Chair of the University of Wales in 1984, and since 2005 has been Research Chair in the Cultural History of Wales at Swansea University.
From 2006 to 2016 he was Chair Arts Council Wales and the founding Series Editor of the Library of Wales for which he also edited two volumes of Welsh short stories as Story 1 and Story 2. In The Frame, his autobiography with attendant essays was published in 2010 as was the completion of a trilogy of fiction with The Crossing in 2020. Since 2016 he has been commissioning Series Editor for Modern Wales.
In partnership with Cover to Cover
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This Writing Life: Dai Smith yn sgwrsio â Peter Stead am fyw ac ysgrifennu ‘Off the Track’.
Yn y cofiant cyfareddol hwn, mae Dai Smith yn ymgysylltu ac yn diddanu gyda bywyd personol awdur sydd wedi taflu goleuni ar hanes modern pobl de Cymru.
‘O’r paragraff cyntaf bron i’r diwedd, mae rhyddiaith dra-chywir, doreithiog Smith yn disgleirio yn ei gallu i danio tân gwyllt cystrawennol a threfnu’n gywrain i siâp oes o chwilfrydedd deallusol a hunanfyfyrio.’ Dylan Moore, Nation.Cymru
Ganwyd Dai Smith yn y Rhondda ym 1945. Astudiodd Hanes yng Ngholeg Balliol, Rhydychen, a Llenyddiaeth ym Mhrifysgol Columbia, yn Ninas Efrog Newydd. Dyfarnwyd PhD iddo ym Mhrifysgol Abertawe am draethawd ymchwil ar Ffederasiwn Glowyr De Cymru, a oedd yn destun ei lyfr, gyda Hywel Francis, The Fed. Roedd yn olygydd cyfrannu i’r gyfres o ysgrifau A People and A Proletariat, a chyhoeddodd, gyda Gareth Williams, Hanes Swyddogol Undeb Rygbi Cymru, Fields of Praise, gan ennill gwobrau amdano. Drwy gydol y 1980au a’r 1990au, ysgrifennodd a golygodd nifer o lyfrau arloesol a phryfoclyd ac erthyglau ysgolheigaidd ar hanes cymdeithasol a diwylliannol Cymru fodern: yn eu plith, Lewis Jones, Aneurin Bevan and the World of South Wales and Wales: A Question for History. Roedd yr ail un yn fersiwn wedi’i diwygio’n helaeth o’r llyfr sy’n gysylltiedig â chwe ffilm ddogfen a ysgrifennwyd ac a gyflwynwyd ganddo gyda’r teitl, Wales!Wales? Aeth ymlaen i greu nifer o ffilmiau eraill ar y celfyddydau a diwylliant poblogaidd, gan gynnwys yr un fwyaf diweddar The Lost Pictures of Eugene Smith.
Daeth yn Olygydd BBC Radio Wales ym 1993, ac yn Bennaeth Darlledu (Saesneg) yno o 1994 tan 2000 pan gafodd ei benodi’n Ddirprwy Is-ganghellor Prifysgol Morgannwg. Bu ganddo swyddi darlithio ers 1969 ym Mhrifysgolion Caerhirfryn, Abertawe a Chaerdydd, lle dyfarnwyd iddo Gadair Bersonol Prifysgol Cymru ym 1984 ac ers 2005 bu’n Gadair Ymchwil Hanes Diwylliannol Cymru ym Mhrifysgol Abertawe.
O 2006 tan 2016, roedd yn Gadeirydd Cyngor Celfyddydau Cymru ac ef oedd Golygydd cyntaf y gyfres Library of Wales y gwnaeth hefyd olygu dwy gyfrol o straeon byrion Cymreig ar ei chyfer, Story 1 a Story 2. Cafodd In The Frame, ei fywgraffiad gydag ysgrifau dilynol ei gyhoeddi yn 2010, a chwblhaodd drioleg ffuglen gyda The Crossing yn 2020. Ers 2016, bu’n Olygydd Comisiynu’r gyfres Modern Wales.
Mewn partneriaeth â Cover to Cover
I archebu eich tocynnau AM DDIM a darganfod mwy am ein digwyddiadau sydd i ddod CLICIWCH YMA:
https://www.swansea.ac.uk/cy/sefydliad-diwylliannol/digwyddiadau/cyfres-salon-llenyddol
