Akenfield

'The best portrait of rural life in England' Roger Deakin'Exquisite' John Updike'The finest contemporary writer on the English countryside' ObserverRonald Blythe's perceptive and vivid evocation of the rural Suffolk he had known since childhood was acclaimed as an instant classic when it was published in 1969. It reverberates with the voices of the village inhabitants, from the reminiscences of survivors of the Great War evoking days gone by, to the concerns of a younger generation of farm-workers and the fascinating and personal recollections of, among others, the local schoolteacher, doctor, blacksmith, saddler, district nurse and magistrate. Providing insights into the land, education, welfare, class, religion and death, Akenfield forms a unique document of a way of life that has, in many ways, disappeared.

Ronald Blythe wrote poetry, short stories, history and literary criticism, much of it reflecting his East Anglian background. He was the author of A Treasonable Growth, The Age of Illusion and The View in Winter and the editor of The Penguin Book of Diaries. His work has been translated and has received a number of literary awards. Blythe died in 2023. He is hailed today as one the greatest British nature writers.

A hundred years from now, anyone wanting to know how things were on the land will turn more profitably to Akenfield than to a sheaf of anaemically professional social surveys. the Guardian