Welsh Ghost Stories
(2025)(A book in the Trojan Donkey Chapbooks series)
A collection of stories by Rhys Hughes
Four ghost stories set in Wales.
"The eyes of the soldier, deep set, tiny points of light at the end of a tunnel, became yellowish, feverish as they expanded. Were they moving forwards out of his sockets? Ghosts that are physical can perform a number of anatomical feats denied to the living. Who had told him this? Pushed out of the head by the pressure of menace. Two dead men on the ground, ghosts on the road, outdated in dress and posture, performing extinct duties, unaware of the slow passing of time. Phosphorescent haloes surrounded them now as they loomed."
"Rhys Hughes seems almost the sum of our planet’s literature. He toys with convention. He makes the metaphysical political, the personal incredible and the comic hints at subtle pain. Few living fictioneers approach this chef’s sardonic confections, certainly not in English.’ — MICHAEL MOORCOCK
"If I said he was a Welsh writer who writes as though he has gone to school with the best writing from all over the world, I wonder if my compliment would just sound provincial. Hughes’ style, with all that means, is among the most beautiful I’ve encountered in several years.’ — SAMUEL R. DELANY
"It’s a crime that Rhys Hughes is not as widely known as Italo Calvino and other writers of that stature. Brilliantly written and conceived, Hughes’ fiction has few parallels anywhere in the world. In some alternate universe with a better sense of justice, his work triumphantly parades across all bestseller lists.’ — JEFF VANDERMEER
Genre: Horror
"The eyes of the soldier, deep set, tiny points of light at the end of a tunnel, became yellowish, feverish as they expanded. Were they moving forwards out of his sockets? Ghosts that are physical can perform a number of anatomical feats denied to the living. Who had told him this? Pushed out of the head by the pressure of menace. Two dead men on the ground, ghosts on the road, outdated in dress and posture, performing extinct duties, unaware of the slow passing of time. Phosphorescent haloes surrounded them now as they loomed."
"Rhys Hughes seems almost the sum of our planet’s literature. He toys with convention. He makes the metaphysical political, the personal incredible and the comic hints at subtle pain. Few living fictioneers approach this chef’s sardonic confections, certainly not in English.’ — MICHAEL MOORCOCK
"If I said he was a Welsh writer who writes as though he has gone to school with the best writing from all over the world, I wonder if my compliment would just sound provincial. Hughes’ style, with all that means, is among the most beautiful I’ve encountered in several years.’ — SAMUEL R. DELANY
"It’s a crime that Rhys Hughes is not as widely known as Italo Calvino and other writers of that stature. Brilliantly written and conceived, Hughes’ fiction has few parallels anywhere in the world. In some alternate universe with a better sense of justice, his work triumphantly parades across all bestseller lists.’ — JEFF VANDERMEER
Genre: Horror
Used availability for Rhys Hughes's Welsh Ghost Stories