Read on for a sneak preview of some of Parthian's 2012 titles...

Winner of the Norwegian Critic’s Prize in the year that it was published, the first English translation of The Carriage Stone will be published in hardback in April. The Carriage Stone explores the meeting of a struggling communist writer and a Lutheran minister as each of them confronts the death of a loved one. Both, in different ways begin to doubt their lives and their work. The Carriage Stone presents some of the strongest and most committed writing in recent decades of Norwegian Literature, and the development of the relationship between the writer and the minister is masterfully depicted, smoothly shifting between intimacy and distance. Written by Sigbjørn Hølmebaak. Born in southern Norway, after attending a business school, Hølmebakk became an employee of the State Directorate of Enemy Property. Hølmebakk was a realist, who wrote of existential questions with force and skillfully explored social backgrounds. He was also awarded Gyldendal's Endowment in 1956, and the Dobloug Prize in 1976.

The rise of the book club continues this year, with Waterstone’s beginning their own online group, the continuing efforts of Richard and Judy, and the ongoing popularity of summer reads. Our forthcoming May title This September Sun would make an excellent book club choice. Winner of the Best First Book Award at the Zimbabwe International Book Fair in 2010, we anticipate every success for its British publication. This September Sun was suggested to us for publication by ‘amaBooks, a Zimbabwean publishing house run by Brian Jones and Jane Morris who is originally from Ebbw Vale and comes back to visit whenever she can.

This September Sun follows the story of Ellie, a shy girl growing up in post-Independence Zimbabwe, longing for escape from the confines of small-town life. When she eventually moves to Britain, her wish seems to have come true. But life there is not all she imagined. And when her grandmother Evelyn is brutally murdered, a set of diaries are uncovered – spilling out family secrets and recounting a young Evelyn's passionate and dangerous affair with a powerful married man. In the light of new discoveries, Ellie begins to re-evaluate her relationship with her grandmother, and must face up to some truths about herself in the process. The novel is set against the backdrop of a country in change, and Ellie – burdened by the memories and the misunderstandings of the past – must also find a way to move forward in her own romantic endeavors.

Not only is This September Sun a thoroughly enjoyable read, but Bryony Rheam also bravely addresses the political and social situation of White Zimbabwe from the 1940s to the present day, addressing current affairs relating to Mugabe’s rule and the history of what once was Rhodesia. The novel stretches back to describe Evelyn’s doomed marriage to a soldier, and subsequent move to Zimbabwe, his home country, after his death. The doom and gloom of the economic situation has certainly evoked some of the wartime spirit, and this is reflected in the current popularity of many of the novels – and serialisations of them – set in this time. We also anticipate there continuation of the literary trend for African writing. Author Bryony Rheam is based in Ndobe, Zambia and Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. We hope that This September Sun will sit alongside novels such as Adiche’s Half of a Yellow Sun, but with a different and intriguing angle.

This June, in a follow-up to the Wales’ Book of the Year 2011 winner, Cloud Road, John Harrison brings us Forgotten Footprints: lost stories in the discovery of Antarctica. In 12 years John has visited over the last continent 40 times, and guides and lectures on adventure cruise ships in the region. In Forgotten Footprints he delivers a selection of thrilling accounts of the merchantmen, navy men, sealers, whalers, aviators and eccentrics who, with scientists and adventurers, drew the first ghostly maps of the white continent. This beautifully presented hardback edition includes many stunning full-colour photographs. A title perfect for the actual and the armchair traveller alike.

In tandem with the publication of Forgotten Footprints, John Harrison will be appearing across Wales in a multi-media spoken word tour in 2012, including nights at Cardiff, Swansea, Rhosygilwen, Halifax, Deal and Hereford. John will also be appearing at the Hay and Edinburgh Festivals. Further details of the tour can be found at www.forgottenfootprints.com. Featuring stunning original photography and immersive, atmospheric soundscapes, this is more than just a lecture – this is a chance to hear stories, both personal and historical, from a man with many years' experience of this mysterious continent.

The ebook market continues to develop, boosted by the production of new devices and improvements to software. Travel books have proved an incredibly popular genre in the e-publishing market and Forgotten Footprints will join John’s other acclaimed titles Cloud Road and Where the Earth Ends in a digital format. This year, we will be adding new titles to our ebook range, along with additional bestselling titles from the backlist, including Dai Smith’s non-fiction historical memoir In The Frame (also out in paperback this year), and Lewis Davies’ novel Work, Sex and Rugby.

In what Bloomsbury have described as the Year of the Short Story: June also brings a zany new short story collection, Too Cold For Snow by Jon Gower. The stories range freely, almost chaotically, from the taiga region of northern Russia to the depths of despair. A paid assassin called Krink loads up on viper-spit to tackle some uber-thugs; the governor of a prison ship introduces his inmates to haute cuisine; a farmer wakes up after an avalanche in north Wales to find he’s the last man alive.  This is a thrilling collection from a stunningly original voice, and a journey in stories through a fabulous and fascinating fictional new world. Winner of the John Morgan travel writing prize, Jon already has eleven books to his name, in both Welsh and English. His latest book The Story of Wales, will accompany the landmark BBC series. Jon’s work has been described by Jan Morris as 'Sheer creative energy, unflagging and unfailingly inventive'.

The Likes of Us, the best of Stan Barstow's short fiction covering the last five decades of British life, will be published in July. The collection presents a classic selection from one of the key figures of British post-war contemporary fiction. Along with Alan Sillitoe and John Braine, Stan Barstow was considered one of the pioneers of the 1960s school of northern literary realism. Described by The Times as a ‘master storyteller,' Stan was a Fellow of Academi, and he sadly passed away in 2011. Parthian published his novel A Kind of Loving in July 2009, and hope that The Likes of Us will receive an equally warm reception.

Leaving behind the old lie that water should be free, non-fiction environmental title The Sound of Thirst explores the human right to water – and how mismanagement and political expediency have contributed to global inequality. Written by David Lloyd Owen, a leading figure in the field of sustainable water management, this book presents a moral, economic and sustainable case for financing the many trillions of pounds of work needed worldwide in the coming decades to ensure safe water for all – and a cleaner earth.

Readers with special interests in the best of contemporary world literature may enjoy God on Every Wind, set for publication in August, a tale of love, loss and politics set against a backdrop of turbulent societies, times and allegiances, by acclaimed Indian playwright Farhad Sorabjee. God on Every Wind tells the story of Philomena, a born rebel, disillusioned with her middle-class comfort and the expectations of her parents and Nestor, an impoverished African exile with the heart of a poet. When the two meet by chance on the streets of 1960s Bombay, their attraction will change their lives forever. God on Every Windis a powerful debut novel exploring the possibilities and limitations of individual and political revolution, and will appeal to readers who have enjoyed the work of recent success stories from the sub-continent, such as Mohsin Hamid’s Moth Smoke.

Amidst the recent speculation about her private life, publication of Kate Roberts' Feet in Chains pulls the attention back to her excellent writing. In the pages of this classic 1936 novel, we see the passionate and headstrong Jane grow up and grow old, struggling to bring up a family of six children on the pittance earned by her slate-quarrying husband, Ifan. Spanning the next forty years, the novel traces the contours not only of one vividly evoked Welsh family but of a nation coming to self-consciousness; beginning in the heyday of Methodist fervour and ending with the carnage and disillusionment of the First World War. Kate Roberts (1891-1985) was the towering figure of Welsh-language fiction in the twentieth century. Feet in Chains is her masterpiece and it is here presented in a vibrant English translation by Katie Gramich which does justice to the austere beauty of Roberts’ style and takes the reader into the heart of a different culture, a different world.

This year, we’ll also be publishing a mass market paperback edition of Tyler Keevil’s Fireball, the Media Wales Readers’ Prize winner at the 2011 Wales’ Book of the Year awards. The Media Wales Readers' Prize is chosen by the public, and reflects Fireball’s growing popularity with readers. Fireball is set in Vancouver, at the end of an intensely hot summer. It opens with narrator Razor’s complex and misunderstood best friend Chris driving a stolen police car through a roadblock and over a cliff to his death. Fireball takes us back to the start of the summer and unravels the events leading to Chris’s death –following four teenagers through the months that will come to define their future. Combining the cinematic feel and cult chic of Chuck Palahniuk with nods to Salinger's The Catcher in the Ryeand S. E. Hinton's The Outsiders, Fireballis a brilliant, disturbing and gripping story of the agonies of coming of age and innocence lost. On Fireball, Tyler says ‘A lot of readers have told me it reminds them of their own childhood, regardless of where they’re from’. Originally from Vancouver, Tyler Keevil first came to the UK in 1999 to study English. He moved to Wales in 2003 and he currently lectures in Creative Writing at the University of Gloucestershire. Fireball was also shortlisted for The Guardian’s Not the Booker Prize 2011. We are confident that Fireball will continue to go from strength to strength, and we are very excited about this year’s edition of the novel and a forthcoming short story collection from Tyler in 2013.

Fireball was selected for publication as part of Parthian’s Bright Young Things Series, which aims to discover and progress new literary talent. This year the Bright Young Things Series promotes two poetry collections from up-and-coming poets Alan Kellermann and Anna Lewis.

Love, lust, loss, art and myth – all find their way into Alan Kellermann's sparkling debut collection. Witty, moving, always engaging, You, Me and the Birds signals the arrival of an exciting and important new voice in poetry, described by leading poet Robert Minhinnick as ‘a newcomer we should all be watching’. An American poet, Alan has recently completed a PhD at Swansea University, and is a regular on the local poetry circuit.

Anna Lewis' work  has appeared in Poetry Wales, New Welsh Review, Mslexia andHarper’s Bazaar. Her startling first collection is populated with characters who move between departure and arrival. Soldiers kill time on street corners, an ageing emperor searches for immortality; the ignored wives of medieval legend rub shoulders with modern-day migrant workers. Anna’s accomplished poems introduce us to worlds on the margins of our received history, to people far from their origins and further still from their destinations. Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch has praised the collection as ‘by turns visionary and erudite… a journey from the Ukraine down the Congo through Tibet, Tokyo and Dublin – all evoked in delicate, precise lines.’

The titles Parthian are publishing this year are wide-ranging, vital and always engaging. In further exciting news, Parthian’s titles continue to be snapped up for translation globally, reflecting a pleasing interest in Welsh writing. This year will see Cynan Jones's Everything I Found on the Beach translated into French, Lewis Davies’ My Piece of Happiness into Macedonian, and Kilburn Hoodoo and Library of Wales title Black Parade by Jack Jones into Arabic. We are really proud of the international resonance Parthian has as a publishing house. Central to our mission is our belief is the power of a great book, and what we publish reflects a diverse and contemporary Wales that casts a keen eye on the wider world.