Menna Elfyn

Who is Menna Elfyn?

Menna Elfyn is a Welsh poet, playwright, columnist, and editor who writes with passion of the Welsh and identity. She has published ten volumes of poetry and a dozen more of children’s books and anthologies. She has also written eight plays for stage, six radio plays for BBC, two plays for television as well as writing documentaries for television. Her latest publication is Perffaith Nam/Perfect Blemish, and IN PERSON, Bloodaxe Books, one of 30 poets chosen from around the world by the publisher in 2008 as one of their most successful poets. She also co-edited the Bloodaxe Book of Modern Welsh Poetry. She has won numerous prizes for her work, the most recent of which is a Creative Arts prize to write a book on ‘Sleep’.

When Menna issued her bilingual selected poems Eucalyptus, Tony Conran described her as ‘the first Welsh poet in 1500 years to have her work known outside Wales’. Her second bilingual volume, Cell Angel, was hailed by the same critic as the most significant collection of Welsh poetry for 40 years.