Novelist Siân James, who "published books celebrating the lives and loves of women, especially Welsh women," died July 21, the Guardian reported. She was 90. James won the Yorkshire Post first novel prize for One Afternoon in 1975, an event that "announced the arrival of a mature new writer." Her third book, A Small Country, won the 1979 Yorkshire Post novel prize.
James's focus "was often on the relationships between women and men: marriage, affairs and the place a woman might win and hold for herself in a century that offered more freedoms and opportunities," the Guardian wrote, adding that she "was deeply committed to Wales, its history and the political engagement of its people to the causes of pacifism and social reform, particularly feminism."
Over the course of four decades, James published 13 novels, two collections of short stories and a memoir, The Sky Over Wales (1998). Her 1997 short story collection, Not Singing Exactly, won the Wales Book of the Year award.
A Small Country, which is recognized as one of the outstanding novels from Wales, was adapted as a Welsh-language TV series, Calon Gaeth, winner of the 2007 Bafta Cymru award for best drama/drama serial for television. James revisited the Evans family and that period around World War I in her last published work, Return to Hendre Ddu (2009). Despite living in England for most of her adult life, she "remained a keen Welsh speaker and translated Kate Roberts's novel Y Byw Sy'n Cysgu, which appeared in 2006 as The Awakening," the Guardian noted.
In a tribute for the Wales Arts Review, Emma Schofield observed: "Writers of Siân James's calibre and skill do not come along every day, but Wales has been fortunate to benefit from her writing for several decades. As the literary world remembers a writer who wrote with grace, wit and honesty, James's writing may find its way to new audiences, where the poignancy of her characters and stories still has so much to say about the lives of women in Wales."