Paris

Product Description

Paris (2013) is William Roberts` most ambitious work to date & can best be described as a contemporary historical novel. It concerns an extended family of Russian emigres struggling to survive in Paris & Berlin during the inter-war years of the last century & examines the difficulty of holding on to one`s identity in exile. As the waves of political & ideological turmoil impinge directly on the fate of the characters, we see some of them adapt & flourish despite the hostile environment whilst others are destroyed. Referencing European & Russian prose, both Realist & Modernist, the style nevertheless is that of a quintessentially Welsh sensibility; with a rich mosaic of linguistic influences such as the Mabinogion, 16C, & 17C Classical Welsh language writers, as well as 21C Welsh dialect & slang. The result is a highly innovative hybrid style, which gives the novel its unique voice. Paris, whilst ostensibly a historical novel, examines themes of crucial contemporary relevance: migration, exile, displacement, & identity. Crossing borders, whether from choice or necessity, is a central feature of the novel. Roberts explores the experience of `the Other`, which in this case, is what it means to be a Welsh speaker. He extrapolates the Welsh condition of internal exile: loss of language, loss of culture, loss of identity to a European, historical setting in order to force his Welsh readers to confront their own predicament from a different historical perspective.