Siân James (20 September 1930 – 21 July 2021)[1] was a Welsh novelist, academic and translator, who wrote in English. Her third novel, A Small Country, is seen as a classic of Anglo-Welsh literature. Her 1996 short-story collection Not Singing Exactly won the English-language category in Wales Book of the Year,[1] the first book by a woman to do so.
James, born in Coed-y-bryn in Ceredigion, attended the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. She was a Fellow of the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, and of the Welsh Academy. She taught on the University of Glamorgan's Masters' degree in Creative Writing.[1] She was later awarded an honorary doctorate by the university for her contribution to literature in Wales.[1]
Siân James twice won the Yorkshire Post Prize, for her first and second novels One Afternoon and Yesterday. One Afternoon was republished in 2023.[2] Her third novel A Small Country, has come to be regarded as a classic of Anglo-Welsh literature.[3] [4] In 2006, A Small Country was adapted as a Welsh-language TV series, Calon Gaeth, which won the 2007 Bafta Cymru award for Best Drama/Drama Serial for Television.[5]
James translated Kate Roberts's novel Y Byw Sy'n Cysgu into English as The Awakening.[6] She also published a memoir, The Sky Over Wales, in 1997. In the same year, her short-story collection Not Singing Exactly won the Wales Book of the Year award.
In 1958 Siân James married the Welsh Shakespearean actor Emrys James and set up a home with him in London and later Worcestershire. They had four children, William, Owen, Jo and Anna.[7] Emrys James died in 1989.[1]