Overview

The idiosyncratic and witty travelogue of a young Welsh-speaking woman who travels the globe in search of Welsh communities. Studying in Lampeter, Dyfed, and learning Welsh, Pamela Petro found it infuriating that whenever – in the post office, at the butcher’s, in the pub – she stumbled with her Welsh, the locals would – kindly, they thought – always revert to English: ‘English is so much easier for you, izznit?’ So she decided to go where English was not an option (i.e. not to Canada, Australia, South Africa or the USA) for the student of Welsh – Paris…Oslo…Tokyo…all kinds of unlikely places with long-standing Welsh communities. Once you start to look, you find the Welsh everywhere: among Petro’s intended ports of call were the Hong Kong Men’s Choir, all Chinamen who sing in Welsh; the Japanese bardic eisteddfod in Tokyo; the Welsh golfers of Oslo; the diners of the Paris Welsh Society (one of three in the city); and many more including, naturally the long-suffering Patagonians. Her simultaneous virtual travels (through the Internet) explore the effects and implications of the language itself, ranging from global searches for the strongest Welsh expletive (Iesu Christ) to how exactly Welsh (officially outlawed between 1536 and 1967) survived centuries of English oppression.

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9780006550105

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Pamela Petro has been educated at Brown, Paris and Harvard Universities; in 1983 she went to the University of Wales at Lampeter for the first time, to do her MA, returning in 1992 for intensive instruction in the Welsh language. She has since taught Welsh and travel writing in the USA. She regularly contributes to the New York Times Travel Section and to Planet, and has compiled a guide to New England. This is her first ‘real’ book. She has, by the way, no Welsh blood.

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