The Rice Paper Diaries (27 page)

Emily Hahn,
China to Me
(Doubleday, 1944)

Susan Campell Passmore,
Farmers and Figureheads: The Port of New Quay and its Hinterland
(Carmarthen: Dyfed County Council Cultural Services Department, 1992)

Dorothy Sheridan, ed.,
Wartime Women: A Mass-Observation Anthology of Women’s Writings, 1937-1945
(Heinemann, 1990)

Philip Snow,
The Fall of Hong Kong: Britain, China and the Japanese Occupation
(Yale University Press, 2003)

Julie Summers:
Stranger in the House: Women’s Stories of Men Returning from the Second World War
(Simon and Schuster, 2008)

The manual from which Nannon copies out a list of directions for Elsa’s trousseau is Elinor Ames’
Book of Modern Etiquette
(Halcyon House, 1935).

The quotation from Kica Kolbe used as epigraph to this book is taken from Elizabeth Bakovska’s essay ‘
Stranstvuvanje
and Provincialism’
Transcript Review
35, and is reproduced here with kind permission.

Elsa’s reflections on Wales’ geographical resemblance to a pig were inspired by Menna Elfyn’s poem ‘
Siapiau o Gymru
’ (‘Wales – the shapes she makes’, trans. Elin ap Hywel,
Eucalyptus
, Gwasg Gomer, 1995), and Alix Nathan’s short story ‘Brawn’ (
New Welsh Review
81). I’m also indebted to the artist Clive Hicks
-
Jenkins, who is a powerful contemporary mediator of the Mari Lwyd tradition.

Finally, I would like to pay my respects to my great
-
aunt, Menna Wilders, née Gillies, to whom this book is dedicated
. The Rice Paper Diaries
started out as an attempt to find out more about her wartime experiences, and although the novel is a fiction and not a reconstruction – historians and those who were there will note the extent to which I have made free with historical events, physical locations and proper names – I hope it goes some way towards celebrating Menna’s unquenchable spirit.

About the Author

Francesca Rhydderch has a degree in Modern Languages from Newnham College, Cambridge, and a PhD from Aberystwyth University. A former editor of
New Welsh Review
, her short stories have been published in magazines and anthologies and broadcast on Radio 4 and Radio Wales.
This is her first novel.

Seren is the book imprint of

Poetry Wales Press Ltd

57 Nolton Street, Bridgend, Wales, CF31 3AE

www.serenbooks.com

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© Francesca Rhydderch 2013

ISBN: 978-1-78172-052-3

The right of Francesca Rhydderch to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

A CIP record for this title is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted at any time or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the copyright holder.

This book is a work of fiction. The characters and incidents portrayed are the work of the author’s imagination. Any other resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Cover image: Daniel Murtagh / Millennium Images, UK

Ebook Conversion by Elaine Sharples

Printed by Bell and Bain, Glasgow

The publisher works with the financial assistance of The Welsh Books Council