The struggle [depicted in Traed mewn Cyffion (Feet in Chains)] is dire and grim, heroic in its simple fortitude in the face of economic injustice which neither [the central character] nor her husband understands. The children in their various ways seek an escape…. But Kate Roberts is not concerned with the trails they pursue; for her it is enough to note that the escape routes represent outside influences undermining the closely knit, isolated society which she has protrayed….

All this, with the subtle interplay of one character upon another, is narrated with laconic spareness in a novel where there is no release, only the ability to suffer without being destroyed. Kate Roberts observes, she selects, she records; she does not analyze. But her ability to catch significant detail with hard, sympathetic exactness resuscitates a whole way of life—at least in the original Welsh, where the diction, heavy...