Cyswllt (Jadwiga Graboś)

Cyswllt (Kontakt) arose from a need to discuss those things which are pushed to the edges of society, from a need to search for understanding and to come to terms with disability. This is a book which aims to reveal the emotions and helplessness that parents and carers of disabled children face. These poems were woven from love and hopelessness, disappointment, exhaustion and that internal strength which enables people to live from day to day. They have one key aim: to foster a hope that things could be different if we overcome our fear of difference.

This is a unique volume of poetry translated from Polish into Welsh which combines verse, original artwork by Diana Lipa, and a deliberate use of empty space to create a profoundly unusual reading experience.

Jadwiga Graboś writes poetry, prose and songs. Since 2019 she has published three volumes of poetry and her poems have appeared in anthologies and literary magazines in Poland, with some being translated into Lithuanian, and now Welsh. Her third volume, Kontakt, presented here in Welsh as Cyswllt, won the first prize in the National Original Literary Work Competition in Świdnica in 2023. She graduated in German and Law from Maria Curie-Skłodowska Univeristy in Lublin and in Literary and Artistic Studies from the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. She lives in Lublin and works as a secondary school teacher. She is interested in theatre, film, music and art. She is currently studying art in the Krakow Acadmy of Fine Art. She has four children.

Marta Listewnik is a lecturer in Welsh and Welsh Literature in Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. Since 2017 she has translated four Welsh novels into Polish and published them. This, however, is her first published translation into Welsh.

Hardback, 76 pages with colour illustrations.