Celebrating 50 years of Planet
Collections - Posted 08-12-2020
In November 2020, Planet: The Welsh Internationalist, the Welsh political and cultural magazine, celebrated 50 years since it was first published. Established in 1970 by the author, journalist and scholar, Ned Thomas, Planet continues to this day to provide a lively and unique forum for Welsh cultural and political debate through the medium of English.
The magazine was originally published bi-monthly from the home of Ned Thomas in Llangeitho, before eventually moving to Aberystwyth. Founded in the wake of the decision to transfer the function of The Arts Council of Great Britain in Wales to the Welsh Arts Council in 1967, Planet was intended to provide a outlet for discussions about Wales in English. Its politics was left-wing, and it has since provided a platform for work on a huge variety of topics such as independence, ecology and climate change, sociology, minorities and minority languages, and Anglo-Welsh literature. It has been published continually since its 1970, apart from a temporary hiatus between 1979 and 1985 when it was relaunched. To date, 240 issues have been published under the editorship of Ned Thomas and subsequent editors John Barnie, Helle Michelson, Jasmine Donahaye and current editor, Emily Trehair.
The Planet archivehttps://archives.library.wales/index.php/planet-papers-2 was deposited at The National Library by Ned Thomas during the 1970s, and was coverted into a donation in 1991. Further donations were made in 2010 and 2015, along with a purchase of John Tripp’s correspondence files, in his capacity as literary editor, which were incorporated into the archive in 1988. The archive holds printers’ copies for editions 1-36, including typescripts of articles, artwork and proofs, and many series of correspondence, including letters from numerous important Welsh and Anglo-Welsh writers, such as Dannie Abse, R. S. Thomas, Gwynfor Evans, Meic Stephens, Jan Morris and Kate Roberts, among many, many others.
Planet remains at the forefront of political and cultural debates in Wales.
If you’d like to hear more about Planet – how it’s changed, how it hasn’t, and why a publication subtitled ‘The Welsh Internationalist’ is needed now more than ever – join Ned Thomas and Emily Trehair in conversation with author Mike Parker in the Library’s next online event on Tuesday 8 December at 5:30pm.
This post is also available in: Welsh