Every day throughout May, you will be able to visit the Library of Wales website to download your free story, drawn from Story, vols I and II - a collection boasting the finest Welsh short fiction ever written and featuring some of the most talented literary names from both past and present, including the legendary Dylan Thomas and the award-winning Rachel Trezise, as well as read all about the chosen author.

Day 16: ‘Muscles Come Easy' by Aled Islwyn

(Taken from Out With It, 2008)

Aled Islwyn is a writer, editor and translator. He was born in 1953 in Port Talbot, moved around Wales during his childhood and graduated in Welsh at St. David’s College, Lampeter.  He has lived and worked in Cardiff since the 1970s, and currently works as a Press Officer with S4C. He has written and published extensively in Welsh, and although he is mostly known for his novels, he has also published a volume of verse, Dyddiau Gerwyn (’The Days of Gerwyn’) (1977). His fiction is characterised by an emphasis on emotional concerns underlain by a sharp, lyrical intensity. He explores the interplay between individual and society, focusing on the psychology of identity and sexuality with great intensity and lyricism. He won the Daniel Owen Memorial Prize at the National Eisteddfod in 1980 and again in 1985. His collection of short stories, Unigolion, Unigeddau (1994) won the Welsh Book of the Year Prize in 1995. Out With It (2008) is his third collection of short stories, but his first in English.

You can download the story in PDF format here. (If download does not start, then right click the link and select 'Save link as'.)

Selected bibliography

Muscles Came Easy (Parthian, 2011)

Out With It (Parthian, 2008)

Contributed to

Story II (anthology) (Library of Wales, 2014)

A White Afternoon: Parthian Anthology of Welsh Short Stories (Parthian, 1999)