Jerry Hunter

Thomas Gerald Hunter FLSW (born 1965 ), more commonly known as Jerry Hunter, is an American academic and novelist who has spent most of his professional life in Wales. His academic field is Welsh-language literature and he writes in the Welsh language as well as in English; as a fiction writer, he has been described as one of the major Welsh language novelists of the 21st century. Biography Born in Cincinnati, Hunter is a graduate of the University of Cincinnati (BA). Developing an interest in Welsh literature during his undergraduate degree, Hunter first came to Wales as an MPhil student at Aberystwyth University and immediately began learning Welsh. He returned to the United States to obtain a PhD at Harvard University; but since the 1990s he has lived in Wales and held academic posts at Cardiff and, since 2003, at Bangor University, where he is currently (2026) a professor in the School of Welsh. He is a former editor of the Academi's literary periodical Taliesin.

Since 2023, Hunter has been co-host of a Welsh-language podcast, Yr Heniaith ('The Old Language'). In each chapter, Hunter provides a layperson's summary of key text, figure or event in the history of Welsh-language literature to his co-host Richard Wyn Jones, a friend since they met in Aberystwyth in the 1990s and self-described as being largely ignorant about the subject. A video version of each Podcast is shared to YouTube and a written summary in English on Nation.Cymru; as of January 2026 seventy-nine episodes had been released and the chronological survey which began with the sixth-century Y Gododdin had reached the 18th century antiquarian Iolo Morganwg. Hunter's co-host Richard Wyn Jones regularly draws attention to the irony of an American teaching a man from Ynys Môn about the literary tradition of his own language; though Hunter has also described himself on the podcast as being as much Welsh as American. the latter of whom is also a novelist. He lives in Dyffryn Nantlle. He describes himself as a keen musician, and has previously been a member of various amateur rock bands.

Career Academic Work Hunter's academic interests and publications cover the whole history of Welsh-language literature from the middle ages to contemporary literautre. Hunter is a member of Gorsedd Cymru, with the bardic name 'Gerallt Glan Ohio'.

Fiction As a novelist, Hunter is best known as a writer of historical fiction for adults, and many of his novels, like his academic work, explores the history of the Welsh in America, though he has also explored genres such as dystopian fiction, and with his very first fiction book, Ceffylau'r Cymylau (Gwasg Gomer, 2010) which was written for his daughters, fantasy and children's fiction.

His first novel for adults, Gwenddydd (Gwasg Gwynedd, 2010), is ostensibly a novel about a brother and sister during the Second World War, however it is in fact a retelling in modern clothes of the medieval legend of Myrddin (Merlin) and his sister Gwenddydd, as recounted in the thirteenth-century poem 'Cyfoesi Myrddin a Gwenddydd ei Chwaer'; the novel won for him the Prose Medal that year at the National Eisteddfod of Wales. The Prose Medal is one of the major literary awards at the Eisteddfod, and though it had previously been won by individuals who had learned Welsh as adults, Hunter was the first winner to be originally from outside the United Kingdom. Gwenddydd has been described as "an important contribution to War fiction in Wales."

Gwenddydd was followed by a second comparatively short historical novel, Gwreiddyn Chwerw ('Bitter Root', 2012), set this time in the nineteenth century. Hunter's third novel however, Ebargofiant ('Oblivion', 2014), was both an ambitious step forward and something of a stylistic departure, being a post-apocalyptic portrayal of a world ravaged by global environmental collapse. Written in an original, non-standard Welsh orthography, it has been compared to Finnegans Wake and Samuel Beckett Ebargofiant is regularly featured on lists of the greatest Welsh language novels of the 2010s.

Hunter returned to historical fiction for his fourth novel, Y Fro Dywyll ('Dark Territory'), published in the same year as Ebargofiant and depicting a 16th century adventurer searching for a Welsh colony in North America. Its reviews variously described Hunter as a "boundary tester par excellence" and "a master at work", Y Fro Dywyll is, as of 2026, the only one of Hunter's novels to be translated into English, by Patrick Ford as Dark Territory. A Bulgarian translation also exists, by Daniel Aleksandrov Todorov.

With his next novel Hunter returned once again to the history of the Welsh in America. Ynys Fadog (2018) ('Madog's Island'), which follows a family of Welsh settlers to the United States over multiple generations, has been claimed to be the longest novel ever written in Welsh It netted Hunter another book of the year nomination, his fourth overall (as of 2025).

Hunter's first novel of the 2020s, 2021's Safana, was both a continuation and departure from his previous work. Once again returning to American history in the person of George Whitefield, the novel also incorporates elements of fantasy alternate history. Though a work of fiction, the play draws on the real-life experience of Amy Parry-Williams collecting Welsh folk songs in a workhouse.

The same year, 2026, saw the publication of his first novel in English, An Atheist Christian Gunslinger. A dystopian novel bearing some similarity with Ebargofiant, with both novels drawing inspiration from Russell Hoban's Riddley Walker, the book once again features a non-conventional orthography, in this case based on a combination of midwestern and southern American dialects; and has been described as representing the author's creative response to the rise of the MAGA movement in the United States.