Radical Wales

Radical Wales was a well produced political quarterly funded and published by Plaid Cymru. It ran from 1983-1991. Printed in English it was committed to the idea of decentralised socialism in an independent Wales. It was meant to appeal to radicals across the political and cultural spectrum. The first edition carried an interview with recent convert to Plaid Cymru, Marxist historian Gwyn Alf Williams. When asked why he had joined Plaid, he said: "It's very easy to love Wales, it's the bloody Welsh are the problem!" Williams immediately joined the editorial board and the magazine benefitted from his intellectual presence. Over the years Radical Wales would feature weighty interviews with the likes of Raymond Williams (another Welsh thinker who had converted to Plaid Cymru); Ken Livingstone; and Noam Chomsky (see pic). Not sure what the reasons were behind the magazine's demise but while it lasted it was certainly an impressive piece of work.