In a sense, to really appreciate most of these stories, one has had to have a bit of experience as an ex-pat. Many of these strange creatures were, and still are, lost souls who belong neither at home nor in the places in which they have temporarily settled. In France and Italy they grope for non-existent, imaginary joie de vivre through too much drink and irrelevant sexual encounters. They are disconnected without knowing it. I have met characters like them during my expatriate days in England and France, and found little liking for them and their purposeless lives. And if or when they finally return home, they hang onto their ideas of imaginary joys that they are sure cannot be found at home even if these look them straight in the eyes.

The stories in So This is Love that touched me the most are Pavilion 24, Hey, Mister!, and The Road out of Town. Pavilion 24 is tenderly told while expressing unimaginable pain and hopelessness in a matter-of-fact language. It is the story of two victims from the opposing sides of the Bosnian war, who encounter each other in a way that will surely bring them salvation though not life.

Hey, Mister! is set in an African civil war in a former French-speaking territory, though unnamed. It is, perhaps, the only true love story in this book. A Canadian photojournalist chooses to rescue a young boy, and in the process maternal instincts come to the fore that lead to love between the woman and the child. The Road out of Town is about remembering, about change, about loss. Like most of the stories in this book, it has no happy ending, and is more about running away, not just from home, but from reality. As the character in this story, on his way back from Canada to France muses to himself as he thinks longingly about Paris, "My nostalgia is second-hand; it belongs to lives I have never lived." Yet he says to himself, "Home, I am coming home," as the plane heads away from the North American continent, from home, to Paris. How sad.

The Hiding Place was followed by Azzopardi's fine novel, Remember Me, which got me further interested in Welsh writing. It seemed to me a rather neglected category in the reading material that reaches us from the British Isles. We get English and Scottish authors, and a plethora of Irish, but Azzopardi was the first Welsh writer of either sex that struck a note since Dylan Thomas and Richard Llewellyn, the latter of How Green is my Valley fame. So, when I got a chance to read Wales, Half Welsh, a short story anthology of writers who are either Welsh or who have decided to put their roots down in Wales, I grabbed it.

"So why the title of this anthology?" asks Williams in his introduction to the book, and answers it thus: "Well, because it's a curious business being Welsh. There's something suspiciously optional about it. In some ways it feels less like a culture than a suit of clothes. A suit of rather unfashionable clothes which can easily be stashed in a cupboard and forgotten about, then brought out of mothballs when the winds of fashion change."

A little further down he points out that the Welsh away from Wales soon lose their Welshness and become invisible. "There are virtually no Welsh pubs for expats, not even in London, which must house more Welsh people than anywhere bar Cardiff." He continues, "The accent is surprisingly easy to lose — even Dylan Thomas sounded pure BBC when he wasn't hamming it up for the microphone."

In a way his words reminded me a bit of Canadians in London in the late 1950s and early '60s. We became invisible while the Australians and the Americans stuck out like sore thumbs. Then we had no pubs of our own, and we soon acquired a mid-Atlantic accent that made it difficult for the Brits to place us. We got jobs that the Yanks and Aussies could only dream of. Just for one, Queen Magazine had a disproportionate number of Canadians on staff. I mention Queen here because one of the writers in this anthology, Rachel Trezise was voted New Face of Literature 2003 by this magazine and Harpers.

We have changed, though. Canadians, still as polite as ever, have left a definite mark on London — think Canary Wharf for one. There are now places to congregate, if one wants to be part of the Canadian expat crowd, and we seem to hold onto our accents more, though we are quick to point out that we are not Americans, when looked at suspiciously. Then and now, the Brits still find it difficult to identify North American accents, except those from the Deep South or the middle-Mid-West. As for Canadian writers, they have left their mark on world literature by now, but in the days when I lived in London, Canadians held the exact same cultural place that the Welsh feel they now inhabit.

Since the turn of the millennium, there is a change happening in Welsh consciousness. It began with Niall Griffiths' novel Grits, set in Aberystwyth. Novelist Desmond Barry returned to Wales both in fiction and in person, and then Trezza Azzopardi's The Hiding Place, set in Cardiff's docks area, became shortlisted for the Booker Prize.

The anthology, Wales, Half Welsh got its name from the mixed heritage of the writers. They and their stories in this anthology " . . . are, I think, seen here from a distinct angle, set in a particular place, refracted through a particular history, and so possessed of a particular viewpoint, one that's just a little bit, if you look at the map of Britain, left of centre," Williams writes. <"Are they stories from Wales or from the world? Well, half 'n' half, I'd say. From Wales, half Welsh."

These short stories are very different from those written by Gilbert Reid (above). His subjects are generally educated, fairly well healed, and sophisticated to some extent — or think they are. Not so he subject characters of Wales, Half Welsh. They are generally outcasts in some form or other, have little education and few prospects. The writers employ gritty, grotty language, and the stories have a dark tone, yet also contain black humor. Some of the writers seem to be laughing at themselves — or at least at their Welshness —or their Welsh compatriots. The Welsh writers have a different tone — not just in the accents — from their English, Scottish and Irish counterparts. The lower working class element, which was so much part of Wales during the time when the mines were the main industry of the area, is still the focus of the stories, although the mines have long since been closed.

Maybe I am being unfair by concentrating on just one story, but I am sure, Robson knows that his tale will get under the skin of most readers, in one way or another. That, surely, is his aim. So, he should have a tough enough skin himself to take such pricking. In his little bio at the back of the book he admits to being "skint" (British slang for lack of money). Perhaps if he changed his tactics he might be less so. For younger readers of this review, who may relish the idea of reading a story with lots of "f__k" and the like words, and having to not worry about whether or not to use capitalization, Robson has a website at www.lloydrobson.com . It is interesting.

Still, Wales, Half Welsh is a revelation for anyone seriously interested in 'English' literature. By English I mean anything written anywhere in that tongue in its many variations, shadings and accents. I just finished reading an article in which the writer was amazed to have learned that English has more words than any other language. I thought we all knew that without having to be told so by some lecturer or other. After all, if we add to the huge vocabulary that allows us to be the dominant literary language in the world those words of local color or use that each English-speaking nation or region, such as Wales, add to the pot, the words are in the high millions. In a sense, we need an interpreter for our own language. The only way we can keep up to it is to read novels and other writings from every part of our vast language home with its many rooms and strange inhabitants. So, go and enjoy Wales, Half Welsh. You'll find it amazingly.

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Here is a reply to my review and a note I send to lloyd robson telling him I got a royal trouncing from one of his fans for writing my critique. Mr. Robson has kindly agreed to let me publish his letter as I thought it might be relevant to anyone reading this review and to reading his story.

dear alidλ

thank you for taking the trouble to write to me and for reviewing my short story in 'wales half welsh'. and apologies for the lateness of this reply. i'm delighted to hear i have 'fans' out there who are willing to reply on my behalf. i'm certainly not offended by your review — to be honest it's nothing i haven't had to face before, so please, 'prick' away.

i don't normally respond to reviews as i think writers who do are on a hiding to nothing. yet there is a desire to be understood, which in some ways is more important than being liked (as a writer). so i hope you will allow me to reply to your comments.

i'd like to respond to your suggestion that it was my aim to get 'under the skin the most readers'. i'm sorry, but this is far from the case.

so much has been written about cardiff over the years but — unlike some of the writing from scotland and ireland about their cities and urban culture — little of it has had the authentic feel or language of its subject matter.

with this in mind, my intention was not to get under anyone's skin, but to capture some of the events, conversations & characters i observe around town. most of what's included in 'the vinegar mix' comes from real life, believe it or not. not least, the continuous use of so-called swear words.

i don't want to get bogged down in discussing the perceived value, usage or justification of this kind of language — others have done it far better than i can. but the fact remains this language is a regular feature of the average british city centre. so why shouldn't an urban story sound authentic? whether the reader likes the material is, of course, entirely up to the individual's tastes, but i assure you it's not written for shock value. these words have been around for hundreds of years and many of them have only become 'offensive' in relatively recent times. (you need only read chaucer or shakespeare to experience their 'acceptable' usage.)

with regard to my use of lower case: yes, e e cummings did a similar thing, but i'm unaware of the thought processes behind that writer's decisions.

as for my own thought processes: i consider myself a poet who has moved into prose, and as such i like to include a degree of musicality in my writing. i realised the use of upper case letters was often misleading to the readers ear or eye, as they tend to disrupt the music of the text. the implication is that an upper case letter demands a higher volume or greater stress, often unnecessarily. so i decided to rely on the reader's ability to follow punctuation and to remove capitalisation at the beginning of sentences and proper nouns, allowing a clearer following of the tempo, volume and rhythms of the text.

as for being skint: it wasn't a complaint, merely a statement of fact. if my motivation was financial gain i certainly wouldn't have followed my heart into writing.

anyway, thanks again for considering my work and for giving it column inches. and thanks for your best wishes. i'll add a link to your website as soon as i get chance. good luck with the magazine.