Gary Ley (born 1956) is a Welsh novelist and sculpture technician.
He is based in
Rhossili
Rhossili ( cy, Rhosili; ) is both a small village and a community (Wales), community on the southwestern tip of the Gower Peninsula in Wales. It is within the first Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in the United Kingdom. The village has a Loca ...
on the
Gower Peninsula
Gower ( cy, Gŵyr) or the Gower Peninsula () in southwest Wales, projects towards the Bristol Channel. It is the most westerly part of the historic county of Glamorgan. In 1956, the majority of Gower became the first area in the United Kingdom ...
, near
Swansea.
Biography
Born in
Swansea in 1956, Gary Ley studied geography at university.
He had a career as a teacher and lecturer, before being involved in the setting up of a sculpture business in 1988.
His first novel, ''Taking Ronnie to the Pictures'', was published in 1998, and is notable for having been a runner-up in
Seren’s First Novel Competition.
It deals with the subject of
child abuse, employing
flashbacks and having a narrative that moves between Texas and Wales.
In 2002 Ley published his second novel, ''Strange Tunnels Disappearing''. It is set in the 1980s against the backdrop of the
internal conflict in Peru
The internal conflict in Peru is an ongoing armed conflict between the Government of Peru and the Maoist guerilla group Shining Path. The conflict began on 17 May 1980, and from 1982 to 1997 the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement waged its ow ...
; its main characters are a British aircraft salesman and a Peruvian politics lecturer associated with the
Shining Path
The Shining Path ( es, Sendero Luminoso), officially the Communist Party of Peru (, abbr. PCP), is a communist guerrilla group in Peru following Marxism–Leninism–Maoism and Gonzalo Thought. Academics often refer to the group as the Commun ...
. The imagined persona of the 19th-century railway builder,
Henry Meiggs
Henry Meiggs (July 7, 1811 – September 30, 1877), was a promotor/entrepreneur and railroad builder born in Boston, Massachusetts
Business career
Lumber
Meiggs came to New York City in 1835 and began a lumber business that was ruined by the ...
, features prominently in the novel.
Ley has also had poems published in periodicals.
Bibliography
*
*
* Gary has also been a prolific poet over the years, and had some of his poetry published in Welsh periodicals.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ley, Gary
20th-century British novelists
21st-century British novelists
1956 births
Living people
People from Swansea
Welsh novelists
British male novelists
20th-century British male writers
21st-century British male writers