Llandudno artist releases memoir of her mother

Isabel Adonis’ new book And is the story of her mother Catherine Alice Hughes, who was married to her late father Denis Williams, who hailed from the Caribbean and was also a well-known writer and artist.

With a cold and distant father and an isolated mother, Adonis explores the nature of identity, culture and desire as shaped by her childhood impressions of her parents.

The book follows her mother’s early life in Bethesda to being raised at an orphanage in Caernarfon and a brief stint in Liverpool.

The book cover for And. (Image: Isabel Adonis)

Catherine soon moved to London, and during the war had a child with a black American, before marrying Isabel’s father in 1951.

The couple had five children including Isabel, and she soon joined her husband in Khartoum, Sudan in 1956 and soon after to Nigeria.

In 1967, Denis left her and returned to his home country of Guyana.

These pieces of family history and more are revealed in the book, which has already received praise from notable travel writers Jim Perrin (of the Guardian) and Paul Theroux (father of documentary maker Louis).

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Paul’s review, partly shown on the book cover, said of the book: “I admire this book - a family entangled in Wales and the West Indies and Africa - a dominant father casting his shadow over the narrative.

“It is a complex memoir, related in a quiet and incantatory way, for which the word "Faulknerian" is not an exaggeration.

“It is in many ways a dark tale, but its heart and its humanity gives it great power.”

Isabel launched And on October 19, and it is available on Amazon.