Pamela Petro on the Welsh presence of absence

Pamela Petro is an American writer obsessed with a country she visited by chance.

She first went to Wales as a graduate student in her early twenties. The place felt deeply familiar from the moment she arrived, as did the sense of longing that permeates its landscape and stories, both recent and ancient.

The Welsh have a word for this acute presence of absence, an untranslatable term that captures the feeling of something left behind or taken away, irretrievable beyond place and time, but that forever saddens, motivates and marks us.

Petro explores this concept in the book we’re talking about today, both in its original Welsh context an in the broader context of our lives.

It’s a feeling that resonates deeply with me, and I think you’ll recognize it, too.

Pamela Petro is the author of The Long Field, Travels in an Old Tongue and The Slow Breath of Stone. She’s also a Fellow at the University of Wales, Trinity St David, where she directs the Dylan Thomas Summer School in Creative Writing.

You can read more about her on her website, and follow her on Instagram.

We spoke about her obsession with Wales, the presence of absence, and how the sense of loss and longing drives creativity and invention.

These are the books we mentioned in the podcast:

• The Long Field

• Travels in an Old Tongue: Touring the World Speaking Welsh

We also mentioned:

• The Mabinogion