Emily Zobel Marshall : Anansi’s Thread

Professor Emily Zobel Marshall grew up in the mountains of Eryri in an isolated cottage near Croesor with her Black Caribbean mother and English father. She returns to her home turf to explore the folktales of Anansi, the shape-shifting African-rooted trickster spider, whose stories were used as a resource for resistance and survival for the enslaved in the Caribbean. Anansi is also alive in Plas Brondow, in stories transcribed by Amabel Willams Ellis, who was also fascinated with indigenous global mythology and folklore. Emily explores this cross-cultural web and weaves into it poems from her collections Bath of Herbs and Other Wild (Peepal Tree Press, 2023, 2025) which connect the threads between Croesor, the Caribbean and storytelling as source of endurance, healing and strength