The Small Mine

First published in 1962, this novel tells the tale of a young collier's death in a mining accident in Cilhendre, a fictional industrial village in the south Wales Valleys. The story vividly and sympathetically portrays how the Valley community, and in particular the women, struggle to come to terms with the sudden loss, an occurrence with which they are all too familiar. Yet for all its tragic subject-matter, The Small Mine also conveys the warmth and gusto of the villagers' lives by means of a witty use of language, which was favourably compared to that of Gwyn Thomas and other male Valleys writers on the first appearance of Menna Gallie's Welsh novels. This was the third in the Honno Classics series, an imprint which brings books by women writers from Wales in English, long since out of print, to a new generation of readers.