Cardiff in Full Colour: A City Reimagined Through Its Boldest Storytellers
The Book of Cardiff is a lively, generous and often surprising anthology that captures the city in all its scruffy brilliance. Across its pages, Cardiff becomes a place where ordinary streets tilt into myth, where humour sits comfortably beside heartbreak, and where the people are flawed, funny, stubborn, kind are always the beating heart of the story.
The collection brings together an impressive line‑up of writers, from established voices like Dannie Abse and Leonora Brito to talents such as Emma Harney and Martha O’Brien. What binds them isn’t a single style or theme, but a shared instinct for character. Cardiff here is not a backdrop; it’s a living presence, shaped by the people who argue in its playgrounds, gossip in its corner shops, and dance in its bars.
Two stories stand out for their sheer imaginative force. Hanan Issa’s The Stink of a Lie follows a homeless man who has inherited his nan’s uncanny ability to smell dishonesty. It’s a sharp, compassionate piece that moves between humour and tragedy with ease, offering a rare portrait of someone who sees the world more clearly than it sees him. Declan Andrews’ Bring Me the Head of the Llanishen Bear is a different kind of wild: a surreal, chaotic tale of suburban legend, teenage bravado and the strange politics of local pride. Both stories show Cardiff at its most inventive, where the everyday can tip into the fantastical without ever losing its emotional truth.
“This anthology proves that Cardiff’s greatest strength is its people. Messy, imaginative, defiant, and endlessly worth writing about.”
Elsewhere in the anthology, we meet schoolchildren navigating language divides, shopkeepers plotting revenge, and families trying to find their footing in unfamiliar streets. What’s striking is how often these characters choose kindness over conflict. Even when the stories flirt with darkness, they return to a sense of community that feels unmistakably Cardiffian. With a mix of defiance, humour and warmth that refuses to be flattened into cliché.
The editors promise a celebration of the city’s independent music scene, its community spirit and its storytelling tradition, and the book delivers on all three. But what lingers most is the sense of a place that refuses to behave. Cardiff, in these pages, is messy, contradictory and full of life. It’s a city where a bear might roam Llanishen Leisure Centre, where lies have a smell, and where forgiveness can appear in the most unexpected corners.
The Book of Cardiff isn’t just an anthology; it’s a reminder of how stories root us to a place. It shows a capital that is small in size but enormous in character, and a group of writers who understand that the best tales often begin on an ordinary street, with someone saying something slightly unbelievable.
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