An Evening To Celebrate The Work of Lynette Roberts
With Patrick McGuinness and Charles Mundye
Editors of “A Letter to the Dead”

Lynette Roberts was a modernist poet born in Argentina in 1909. In 1935 she moved to Britain to study art in London. Married fellow poet Keidrych Rhys (Dylan Thomas was their best man) and had two children. They lived in Wales where she wrote during WWII. Her poetry was published by T S Eliot at Faber. “She has an unusual gift for observation and evocation of scenery and place, whether it is in Wales or her native South America”, wrote Eliot.

Lynette Roberts’ early life in Argentina was a continuous thread and influence on her work. Robert Graves once wrote “Lynette Roberts is one of the few true poets now writing. Her best is the best: for example, “The Perfect Close to Oranium”.

Roberts also wrote essays, stories, novels, verse-drama and an autobiography. She died in 1995. Her full works, included unpublished poems, have been compiled recently in the book “Letter to the Dead “by Patrick McGuinness and Charles Mundye, published in November 2025 by Carcanet.

Lynette Roberts’ daughter Angharad Rhys is a member of the Anglo-Argentine Society, and we are grateful to her for facilitating this wonderful opportunity to get to know more about Lynette Roberts.

Letter to the Dead Reviews:
“…She was forgotten over many decades but this century her place in literary history has been assured and she deserves new readers in every new generation” (The Times)

The lecture will be presented by the joint editors of “A LETTER TO THE DEAD”:
Professor Patrick McGuinness, poet and author. Professor of French and Comparative Literature at St Anne’s College, Oxford University. Has won many awards and edited two earlier books by Lynette Roberts, also published by Carcanet.
Professor Charles Mundye, Professor of Modern Literature at Sheffield Hallam University. President of the Robert Graves Society. Has published a book on Keidrych Rhys (fellow poet and husband of Lynette Roberts).

Register to Attend
To help cover the cost of this event, we kindly ask for a £20 contribution per person. To reserve your place, please email us at info@angloargentinesociety.org.uk with the names of all attendees and make your donation using the button below: Please use the reference: Lynette + Your Surname.