On the Red Hill

WINNER OF THE WALES BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD 2020
SHORTLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE 2020

'A moving story of love, tradition and landscape.' Evening Standard, 'Books of the Year'

'A moving, multilayered memoir... extraordinary, ambitious... its scope is immense. A book that is deep in riches.' Simon Callow, Guardian

'A marvellous book... an uplifting tale of tranquillity sought and found in the nearest Britain gets to paradise.' Simon Jenkins

'There are worlds on worlds within this lyrical and profoundly cultured book. In an age of toxic artifice, this is the most necessary medicine: the tenderness of reality and the living, elemental, world.' Jay Griffiths

A multi-layered memoir of love, acceptance, finding home and the redemptive power of nature.

In 2006, Mike Parker and his partner Peredur were witnesses at the civil partnership of their friends Reg and George, the first in the small Welsh town of Machynlleth. Years later, when Reg and George died within a few weeks of each other, Mike and Peredur discovered that they had been left their home: a whitewashed 'house from the children's stories', buried deep within the hills.

On the Red Hill is the story of Rhiw Goch, 'the Red Hill', and its inhabitants, but also the story of a remarkable rural community and a legacy that extends far beyond bricks and mortar. It is a story that celebrates the turn of the year's wheel, of ever-changing landscapes, and of the family found in the unlikeliest of places.

Highly commended by the judging panel for the 2020 Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing

'A delightful book about beauty, joy, love and home... to be celebrated and read.' Sara Maitland

'A great queer rural triumph of a book - wonderfully passionate, funny and insightful. It overflows with love.' Tom Bullough

Auteur

Mike Parker