Poet, novelist, playwright, diaryist, anthologist and broadcaster, Dannie Abse has contributed hugely to literature in Britain. In There was a Young Man from Cardiff he presents a series of deceptions - or are they? - which ask about the nature of 'truth' and 'reality'.

Characters and events materialise and change as though a mist swirls around them: twins appear and disappear in 'Madagascar'; 'The Marvellous Girl' echoes the 'marvellous boy' of Chatterton, whose writing fooled the literary world.

Behind these fictions is the young Dannie, newly qualified doctor struggling to grasp the post-war world of adults, relationships, family and illness. His progress towards a better understanding of life is mirrored by his development as a writer. Charming, quirky, Dannie Abse's fiction is a world in which everyday surfaces are underlain by the strange, scarcely understood currents of human nature.

Dannie Abse (b. 1923) was born in Cardiff and studied Medicine at Cardiff, King's College and Westminster Hospital. A poet, novelist, playwright, he has also published diaries and autobiography. He has published eleven volumes of poetry including a Collected Poems.