Why Dylan Thomas deserves his international Day | Books | The Guardian

Thomas is a great writer because he wrote with accuracy and truth about being human. His language is inventive, yet stolen and re-made from every word he read, every phrase he heard. His poetry, including Under Milk Wood, which I'd call a radio poem, leaves echoes in the mind as music does, as all true poetry should. His prose shows a hawk's eye and ear for detail; fierce, but shaped by tenderness, fearless honesty and humour. The whole man, body and mind, and the whole life are in the words. We see ourselves on the page, feel the arrow in the heart. He gave not a toss for any critical reader but himself. Music and truth, the qualities of all great writers, are what convinces us to read him, to believe him. James Joyce, one of his inspirations, is a prime example. There is no contrivance, no self-consciously "good English" in such writing.

But what does he mean to me? To Wales? I was a teenager when Under Milk Wood was first broadcast. My father, a BBC sound engineer, a Welsh speaker from Carmarthenshire, met Dylan at the BBC, and spoke about the "difficult young genius". He turned on the radio and made me sit down and listen. What I heard changed my life. It was the real thing - alive, lyrical, funny, sad, familiar, tender, and spoken in the phrasing and accent of south-west Wales. It was a revelation.