During his long literary career Gwyn Jones has experimented with various genres at various times, first writing four novels, then producing four volumes of short stories, returning to the novel, and finally becoming a translator and editor of Norse and Welsh short stories and legends. However, his poetic prose, landscape descriptions, portrayals of human psychology, and intermingling of history with fiction emerge most vividly in the condensed form of the short story. "Every writer is by definition a born thief," writes Jones in the introduction to Selected Short Stories (1974); the fiction writer reshapes facts in order to move his audience with his "compulsive imaginings" and "noble feignings." Jones also stresses the impact of an author's experiences on his work, saying that a writer has two autobiographies--one fictional and one factual--and that everything he writes is part of those.

Much of the influence of people and events in Jones's...