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Wales in Central Europe: Elias Canetti’s Encounters with Raymond Williams, Dylan Thomas and Idris Parry

Julian Preece Orcid Logo

International Journal of Welsh Writing in English, Volume: 13, Issue: 1

Swansea University Author: Julian Preece Orcid Logo

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DOI (Published version): https://doi.org/10.16922/ijwwe.13.1.3

Abstract

This article evaluates the interactions between Elias Canetti, the most original writer of German to flee Hitler for the UK (Nobel Laureate in 1981), and three mid-century Welshmen, the poet Dylan Thomas, the Marxist intellectual Raymond Williams, and the academic Idris Parry. Reproducing for the fi...

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Published in: International Journal of Welsh Writing in English
ISSN: 2053-1915
Published: University of Wales Press 2026
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URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa72092
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last_indexed 2026-06-18T04:49:06Z
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spelling 2026-06-17T11:17:52.4304334 v2 72092 2026-06-17 Wales in Central Europe: Elias Canetti’s Encounters with Raymond Williams, Dylan Thomas and Idris Parry 6cf10f340b4335c30856d022675b34b2 0000-0002-8887-740X Julian Preece Julian Preece true false 2026-06-17 CACS This article evaluates the interactions between Elias Canetti, the most original writer of German to flee Hitler for the UK (Nobel Laureate in 1981), and three mid-century Welshmen, the poet Dylan Thomas, the Marxist intellectual Raymond Williams, and the academic Idris Parry. Reproducing for the first time a pen portrait of Thomas contained in Canetti’s unpublished notebooks, it shows how the polyglot political refugee from multi-ethnic South-Eastern Europe in part recognised his own marginalisation in Thomas’ outsider status in literary London. It compares this encounter with the way that Williams championed Canetti’s novel Auto da Fé for its unflinching dissection of cultural collapse, which contrasted with the complacency that Williams identified in contemporary English fiction. Canetti’s friendship with Parry, who interpreted Canetti’s writings for Anglophone readers, demonstrates once again his appreciation of Welsh cultural and linguistic distinctiveness which is now documented in Canetti’s recently published Briefe (2018, Letters). Each encounter was ultimately unsatisfactory either because of misapprehensions of Canetti’s oeuvre or his own ambiguous attitude to his country of exile. The three sets of sources show too how the literary history of Wales, like that surely of most nations, has international dimensions and is sometimes written in languages other than those spoken here. Journal Article International Journal of Welsh Writing in English 13 1 University of Wales Press 2053-1915 15 5 2026 2026-05-15 https://doi.org/10.16922/ijwwe.13.1.3 COLLEGE NANME Culture and Communications School COLLEGE CODE CACS Swansea University Not Required 2026-06-17T11:17:52.4304334 2026-06-17T11:06:31.9765404 Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences School of Culture and Communication - Modern Languages, Translation, and Interpreting Julian Preece 0000-0002-8887-740X 1
title Wales in Central Europe: Elias Canetti’s Encounters with Raymond Williams, Dylan Thomas and Idris Parry
spellingShingle Wales in Central Europe: Elias Canetti’s Encounters with Raymond Williams, Dylan Thomas and Idris Parry
Julian Preece
title_short Wales in Central Europe: Elias Canetti’s Encounters with Raymond Williams, Dylan Thomas and Idris Parry
title_full Wales in Central Europe: Elias Canetti’s Encounters with Raymond Williams, Dylan Thomas and Idris Parry
title_fullStr Wales in Central Europe: Elias Canetti’s Encounters with Raymond Williams, Dylan Thomas and Idris Parry
title_full_unstemmed Wales in Central Europe: Elias Canetti’s Encounters with Raymond Williams, Dylan Thomas and Idris Parry
title_sort Wales in Central Europe: Elias Canetti’s Encounters with Raymond Williams, Dylan Thomas and Idris Parry
author_id_str_mv 6cf10f340b4335c30856d022675b34b2
author_id_fullname_str_mv 6cf10f340b4335c30856d022675b34b2_***_Julian Preece
author Julian Preece
author2 Julian Preece
format Journal article
container_title International Journal of Welsh Writing in English
container_volume 13
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publishDate 2026
institution Swansea University
issn 2053-1915
doi_str_mv https://doi.org/10.16922/ijwwe.13.1.3
publisher University of Wales Press
college_str Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
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hierarchy_top_id facultyofhumanitiesandsocialsciences
hierarchy_top_title Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
hierarchy_parent_id facultyofhumanitiesandsocialsciences
hierarchy_parent_title Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
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description This article evaluates the interactions between Elias Canetti, the most original writer of German to flee Hitler for the UK (Nobel Laureate in 1981), and three mid-century Welshmen, the poet Dylan Thomas, the Marxist intellectual Raymond Williams, and the academic Idris Parry. Reproducing for the first time a pen portrait of Thomas contained in Canetti’s unpublished notebooks, it shows how the polyglot political refugee from multi-ethnic South-Eastern Europe in part recognised his own marginalisation in Thomas’ outsider status in literary London. It compares this encounter with the way that Williams championed Canetti’s novel Auto da Fé for its unflinching dissection of cultural collapse, which contrasted with the complacency that Williams identified in contemporary English fiction. Canetti’s friendship with Parry, who interpreted Canetti’s writings for Anglophone readers, demonstrates once again his appreciation of Welsh cultural and linguistic distinctiveness which is now documented in Canetti’s recently published Briefe (2018, Letters). Each encounter was ultimately unsatisfactory either because of misapprehensions of Canetti’s oeuvre or his own ambiguous attitude to his country of exile. The three sets of sources show too how the literary history of Wales, like that surely of most nations, has international dimensions and is sometimes written in languages other than those spoken here.
published_date 2026-05-15T06:03:06Z
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score 11.109323

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