Portrait of the artist as a young dog and other fiction

 
Set in the author's native Swansea in South Wales, the ten autobiographical stories in this much-loved collection chart his journey from boyhood - movingly and at times comically evoked in tales such as 'The Peaches' and 'A Visit to Grandpa's' - to early adulthood. Along the way, in 'Extraordinary Little Cough', among others, the vicissitudes of adolescence and a burgeoning sexuality are explored with characteristic tenderness and candour, while 'Where Tawe Flows' and 'One Warm Saturday' affectionately document the evolution of the young writer's literary sensibility.