Parthian imprint: 87 books

In the pages of this classic 1936 novel, the passionate and headstrong Jane grows up and grows old, struggling to raise a family of six children on the pittance earned by her slate-quarrying husband, Ifan. Spanning the course of 40 years, this story traces the contours not only of one vividly-evoked...

A serial killer is on the loose in a sleepy, Welsh seaside town, picking off victims like some people pick cockles... The year is 1947 and three young men have recently been demobbed and are back at home in north Wales. It’s the start of good weather and they’re enjoying being alive. They share...

Within the dark heart of an abandoned city, on an island once torn by betrayal and war, lies a terrible secret… Francis Benthem is a successful artist; he's created a new life on an island in the sun. He works all night, painting the dreams of his mysterious Russian benefactor, Illy Prostakov....

This first-person account of passion, murder, and cultural conflict plays out in the person of the young Ann Goodman, who is torn by the struggle for supremacy in her mixed blood, Welsh and English. In this love story, set in the late 19th century, the rural way of life is no idyll but rather a savage and exacting struggle for survival.

A new edition of a classic originally published in 1964, this is a journal of love, romance, and discord in 1950s postwar Germany. As Welsh artist and poet Elizabeth Greatorex travels with her French husband to meet her former lover Klaus, a German count, she maps a snow-bound landscape of desire...

A forgotten Welsh novel, first published in 1925, this love story is also a portrait of class conflict and the plight of rural women. The plot turns on young Rhys Lloyd's interest in the ideas of Social Darwinism and the League of Nations, which make him a dangerous figure in his village. To complicate...

When Philomena, a born rebel—disillusioned with her middle-class comfort and the expectations of her parents—and Nestor, an impoverished African exile with the heart of a poet, meet by chance on the streets of 1960s Bombay, their attraction will change their lives forever. Spanning two continents...

Trouble is brewing in Ystrad. It is time to defend jobs, the pits, and a way of life that has formed both the life of valley and the nation. The union is squaring up to the Coal Board, the government, and the country. Gwyn Pritchard, overman at Blackthorn colliery, believes that the way to save his...

Unsettling, beautiful, and laced with dark humor and tenderness, The Answer and Other Love Stories explores the inner lives of people who live as neighbors, pass each other on the street, and work side by side. Whether a man who is subtly altered by the accident that could have taken his life, or...

In these stories, antique coats retain the personality and power of previous owners; women fantasise about murdering their ex-husbands over tea and cake; mental breakdown sparks a quest mission that incorporates glimpses of both Heaven and Hell. Animistic, lyrical, and poignant; these narratives reverberate...

It is 1880 in Cornwall. Pearl, Nicholas, and Jack play among the fishing boats of Skommow Bay, not understanding the undercurrents beneath their games. Nine years later, Nicholas, keen for the fishing industry and society as a whole to progress, makes a decision that will affect all of their lives...

A dying woman lies in a hospital bed and appropriates another patient's identity to acquire her coveted blackcurrant cordial... and her visitor. A man adopts the role of detective to satisfy - with disastrous consequences - his curiosity about his wife's friend. A monkey is given a computer and uses...

Over more than a decade, Dylan Moore has written with verve, insight and warm humour about places. Life’s journey takes the author from winding roads in rural Wales via bull runs in the Basque Country to the mangrove swamps of the Gulf of Guinea; from smalltown stations in Slovenia to the...

In a small town in Belgium near the French border on the morning of Saint Woelfred’s festival, dead fish lie on the ground, scattered everywhere, as if blown in by the wind. The quarries that were once active now stand empty and will soon be used as toxic waste dumps. Are the fish a sign from the...