Welsh · 1914–1953
Dylan Thomas was a Welsh poet and writer born in Swansea in 1914. He left school at sixteen to work as a newspaper reporter, and he published his first book, 18 Poems, in 1934, when he was twenty. Later collections included Twenty-five Poems, The Map of Love, Deaths and Entrances and In Country Sleep. His best-known poems include 'Fern Hill', 'And death shall have no dominion' and 'Do not go gentle into that good night', written for his dying father. He also wrote short stories and the radio play Under Milk Wood, set in the fictional Welsh village of Llareggub. His dense, musical verse and his booming voice made him a popular reader on tours of the United States. He drank heavily and lived with money troubles. He died in New York in 1953, aged thirty-nine, and was buried in Laugharne, Wales, where he had lived and written.