So Welsh It’s Amazing

A quick-fire, bullet-point, review of Dat’s Love and Other Stories by Leonora Brito

Cee R.
2 min readJul 31, 2022
‘Dat’s Love & Other Stories’ with a fancy tree-bough decoration
Image: reviewer’s own, made with Canva

📚 Dat’s Love and Other Stories by Leonora Brito is also published as ‘Selected Stories’

📚 I loved this collection.

📚 These stories are snapshots of life, primarily set in Cardiff’s Docklands (here in Wales,) and within the city’s Black community.

📚 The stories that are set in Wales — the majority of the collection — are so Welsh it’s amazing.

📚 There’s something epically awesome about reading ‘effing’ and ‘poor dab’ as part of everyday conversation, because it is part of everyday conversation.

📚 So much in this book was familiar, and so much was not: it’s like it’s both the Wales I know and love, and the Wales I’m not really a part of (i.e. the Black community in Cardiff,) at the same time.

📚 As with all short story collections, some shine more than others. I think this one is more hits than misses though!

For a longer review, including Content Warnings:

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Cee R.

Writer, poet, (book) blogger @ dorareads.co.uk , Queer, weird, & a tad peculiar. Bookish rebel. Welsh as a tractor on the M4. Buy me a coffee @ ko-fi.com/ceearr