Emyr Humphreys may be the most distinguished novelist at present writing in and about Wales. His birthplace and nationalist feelings are not irrelevant to his preoccupations as a writer, which arise from the Welsh Nonconformist heritage. In an affluent and irreligious modern society, Emyr Humphreys is both a Christian and a Welsh Nationalist, a combination which separates him from other modern novelists. He is concerned largely, if not constantly, with issues raised by an ongoing Christianity and a concern for the future of Wales. In a talk broadcast on 17 March 1953 he let it be understood that he considered himself a writer of "the Protestant novel."

Emyr Owen Humphreys was born on 15 April 1919 at Trelawnyd in Flintshire (now Clwyd), North Wales, the son of William Humphreys, headmaster of the church school there, and his wife, Sarah Rosina Owen Humphreys. His native area was largely anglicized and the young Emyr...