Simon Baker
Simon Baker on Four First Novels
The cliché ‘eagerly awaited’ seems appropriate for The Welsh Girl, by Peter Ho Davies, a debut which finally appears four years after its author’s inclusion on the Granta ‘Best of Young British Novelists’ roster. It is set in 1944, in a North Wales village so quietly traditional that many locals speak English only haltingly. The novel contains three strands, the main one about Esther, a young barmaid who becomes pregnant after being raped by a British soldier, the second about a bright German PoW held in a camp in the village, who falls for Esther, and the third about a German Jewish refugee working for British intelligence, who arrives to interrogate Rudolf Hess, who is imprisoned nearby.
@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Last Tweets