Kate Roberts

Kate (Catherine) Roberts  (1891 - 1985) was one of the best-known Welsh prose writers and is acknowledged as the most distinguished Welsh author of the 20th century. She was born and grew up in Rhosgadfan, Caernarfonshire.

She studied at the University College of North Wales in Bangor, after which she became a teacher.  She taught Welsh in Ystalyfera (1915 - 1917) and at Aberdare Girls Grammar School (1917 - 1928).

In 1928 she married Morris T. Williams. The couple settled in Denbigh in 1935 where they had bought Gwasg Gee, the publishing house. She was to remain there for the rest of her life until her death in 1985. Her husband died in 1946 and she ran Gwasg Gee on her own for 10 years. She published, and also contributed to Y Faner, the Welsh newspaper. She also wrote for Y Ddraig Goch, the newspaper of the Welsh Nationalist Party, of which she was a member. However it is for her short stories and novels that she is most well known. Some of the most famous of these are Traed mewn cyffion (1936), Y Byw sy'n cysgu (1956), Te yn y grug (1959), Tywyll heno (1962) and Tegwch y bore (1967).

She was said to have turned to writing as a form of therapy following the death of one of her brothers in the First World War, and then her husband in 1946.  Many of her works have domestic settings and reflect the experiences of working men and women in rural Wales.  She often looks back to the past and evokes the qualities of a way of life which has now disappeared.

Te yn y grug ('Tea in the heather') is a series of short stories which deal with a young girl's emotions as she grows up in the Welsh countryside.  The stories also feature childhood friends and have a strong vein of humour running through them.

Traed mewn cyffion ('Feet in chains') is a much darker work.  It is set in the years between 1880 and 1914 in a slate-quarrying area similar to the one where Kate Roberts grew up.  Its chief character is Jane Gruffydd and the novel deals with the hardships of her life as she struggles to bring up six children.

Kate Roberts received many honours for her work including an honorary doctorate from the University of Wales and recognition from the Welsh Arts Council.