Anna and the Angel

PRIZEWINNER IN NEW WELSH WRITING AWARDS 2022 RHEIDOL PRIZE FOR PROSE WITH A WELSH THEME OR SETTING.

Set in a diverse Cardiff and Newport, the novella Anna and the Angel transforms the apocryphal tale from the Book of Tobit. Edna and Anna, the women of the original story, are brought from the shadows to tell their own tale.

'This is a beautifully written retelling, demonstrating that some old stories never lose their power to move us.' - Alexander McCall Smith


'Sensual, ambitious, flowing and intimate... [a] warm, [diverse] exploration of mental health, dodgy money and optimism.' - Gwen Davies, adjudication, New Welsh Writing Awards 2022


'This is an extraordinary transformation of an ancient narrative into an immediate contemporary vitality. Written with wit, inventiveness, compassion and economy, it persuades us that the step from the chaotic world of the biblical Middle East to modern south Wales is not really all that far.' - Rowan Williams

I’m getting in touch because Tobias is here. He’s a fine boy: handsome, kind. You and your husband must be so proud of him. He and Az came for supper and are staying the night… They don’t actually know I’m writing to you. I hope you don’t mind...

And so begins a secretive, tentative and increasingly affectionate correspondence between two strangers. Edna and Anna are both mothers, both lonely in different ways. When Anna’s son Tobias turns up at Edna’s house in Newport, en route to somewhere else altogether, it seems to be an act of pure serendipitous coincidence.
He settles into the heart of this adopted family, healing fractures they hadn’t even acknowledged were there. But he also has a mission to retrieve a fortune on behalf of his ailing father, the difficult and unhappy T.
And there is the mysterious Az ‒ beautiful, enigmatic, and mesmerising. His presence is the thread that stitches these two families together and makes them one.