AN acclaimed author with Tenby roots is riding high on the success of his latest novel ‘The Killing of Butterfly Joe’, which is due for release in paperback in the New Year.

Welsh author Rhidian Brook’s first novel, The Testimony of Taliesin Jones, won several prizes including the Somerset Maugham Award.

His third, The Aftermath, was an international bestseller and has been translated into twenty-five languages; it has also been made into a major motion picture, starring Keira Knightley and Alexander Skarsgård.

He has written for television and the screen and is a regular contributor to BBC Radio 4’s Thought For The Day.

Rhidian grew up in Tenby, and his mum still lives in Pembrokeshire.

His first novel ‘The Testimony of Taliesin Jones’ - set in a fictional Pembrokeshire - won several prizes, including the Somerset Maugham Award, and he was short-listed for Welsh Book of The Year 1997.

His short stories have appeared in numerous publications, including the Paris Review, and have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4. He is also a regular contributor to ‘Thought For The Day’.

‘The Killing of Butterfly’ (published by Picador) is loosely based on Rhid’s own experiences travelling through America as a butterfly salesman in his early 20s with a larger than life character called Joe!

Hurtling across 1980s America, this wildly original story is full of characters you’ll never forget.

Part neo-gothic thriller, part existential road trip, part morality tale, ‘The Killing of Butterfly Joe’ is a wildly original story, telling an epic tale of friendship, desire and the search for freedom and self-definition.

Soon to be a film with Ffilm Cymru Wales, ‘The Killing of Butterfly Joe’ will be released in paperback edition early in the new year.