Hummingbird

UK launch of fourth novel for Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing

Welsh-Canadian writer Tristan Hughes is to launch his latest novel at the University.

A coming-of-age story about death, life, and the changes they bring, Hummingbird is a moving tale of loss, absence and redemption set in the landscape of the author’s youth - the harsh, unforgiving beauty of the forests of northern Ontario.

“What you could change and alter could never be finished or complete or dead. This is what I had been told back then, and what I had tried very hard to believe in since.”

Beside a lake in the northern Canadian wilderness, fifteen-year-old Zachary Tayler lives a lonely and isolated life with his father. His only neighbours are a leech trapper, an eccentric millionaire, and an expert in snow. But then one summer the enigmatic and shape-shifting Eva Spiller arrives in search of the remains of her parents and together they embark on a strange and disconcerting journey of discovery. Nothing at Sitting Down Lake is quite as it seems. The forest hides ruins and mysteries; the past can never be fully understood. And as Zach and Eva make their way through this haunted landscape, they move ever closer towards an acceptance of what in the end is lost and what can truly be found.

Born in northern Ontario and brought up on the Welsh island of Ynys Mon, Tristan Hughes continues to teach Creative Writing at Cardiff. Author of the novels Eye Lake, Revenant, and Send My Cold Bones Home, as well as the short story collection, The Tower, the writer-academic is a winner of the Rhys Davies Short Story Prize.

Published by Parthian, Hummingbird sees its UK launch at the University’s Main Building on Thursday 15 June (6pm – 7.30pm), with readings by the author.

Creative Writing is taught at all levels from the new BA in English Literature and Creative Writing through to Masters and Doctorate levels within the School of English, Communication and Philosophy.