13 Facts About Emyr Humphreys

Emyr Humphreys's career spanned from the 1940s until his retirement in 2009.

Emyr Humphreys was educated at Rhyl High School, where, as E O Humphreys, he started composing poetry and wrote for The Welsh Nationalist, the monthly English-language newspaper of the Welsh Nationalist Party, later called Plaid Cymru.

Emyr Humphreys went on to study history and English at University of Wales, Aberystwyth, after winning a scholarship to study there.

Emyr Humphreys subsequently undertook relief work in Egypt and Italy.

The stories of Emyr Humphreys are based on Celtic myths, and in particular the myth of Blodeuwedd which has been incorporated in his writings throughout his career.

Emyr Humphreys took a different viewpoint in Outside the House of Baal, and wrote the novel from a perspective of old age.

Emyr Humphreys's masterpiece was The Land of the Living, an epic sequence of seven novels charting the political and cultural history of twentieth-century Wales.

Emyr Humphreys remarked in a 2018 interview that he wanted to tell a story from "cradle to the grave".

Emyr Humphreys wrote plays for stage and television, short stories, The Taliesin Tradition, and published his Collected Poems in 1999.

Emyr Humphreys won the Wales Book of the Year Award in 1992 and 1999.

Emyr Humphreys was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and the Learned Society of Wales.

Emyr Humphreys retired in 2009 aged 90 after his final book was published.

Emyr Humphreys died on 30 September 2020 at his home in Llanfairpwll, Anglesey, aged 101.