Happy Birthday Dylan!

Today would have been Dylan Thomas’ 100th birthday! The Welsh playwright, poet and writer was born on the 27th October 1914 in Swansea, and became one of Wales’ greatest, and greatest known, literary figures.

Thomas began writing poetry in school, and when he left, he was briefly a journalist until his first volume of poetry “18 Poems” was published in 1934. He went on to produce seven more poetry books as well as nine books of prose, two plays and two film screenplays.

However, Thomas is often more renowned for his extravagant lifestyle, excessive drinking and womanising than he is for his poetry. Despite his success, Thomas struggled to make a good living as a writer, and lived from hand to mouth, frequently being chased by bad debts and money owed.

Thomas also became well known for his stormy marriage to Caitlin Macnamara, and their relationship was often the cause of speculation. Rumours were rife of alcoholism and affairs, and in her later autobiography, Caitlin claimed that “”ours was a drink story, not a love story….”. The Thomas’ lifestyle was nomadic, moving from town to town and place to place before finally settling in the small Welsh village of Laugharne on the southern coast.

In his later career, Dylan Thomas found success as a broadcaster for the BBC, a film scriptwriter and as a touring poet. He undertook four tours of America between 1950 and 1953, performing his poems and plays to American college audiences, and enjoying huge fame and success.

Dylan Thomas statue in Swansea

Dylan died at the age of 39, in New York whilst he was touring America. The official cause of death was given as pneumonia, but Dylan had passed into a coma a few days before he finally died, and much speculation was made as to whether his alcoholic lifestyle had contributed to his death.

His early death really only contributed to his image as a tortured artist and misunderstood poet, although today, his legacy lives on in his poems and plays, which are still much loved and appreciated around the world, not just in Wales. For a poet from a small Welsh town to become one of the best known writers in the world in the 1950s was no mean feat, and so today, on what would have been Dylan Thomas’ 100th birthday, we raise a glass to one of Wales’ greatest literary heroes, Mr Dylan Thomas. Happy Birthday!

There are lots of events happening across Wales to mark Dylan Thomas’ 100th birthday. For more details visit www.dylanthomas100.org