Hiraeth woven into every story
Tony Bennett writes with Wales in his bones. Born in Newport, Monmouthshire, and raised in historic Caerleon, his earliest playground was the Roman amphitheatre that lay virtually in his back garden — a daily reminder that stories, like stones, can endure for centuries. That sense of history, place, and belonging has shaped everything he writes.
After a globe-spanning career as an international businessman, Tony returned to the landscapes that had formed him, turning to fiction with the same curiosity and energy that once took him across continents. His debut novel, Beware the Quiet Man, opens in the beauty and grandeur of the Preseli mountains, a love letter to Pembrokeshire’s wild heart. The sequel, The Argent Brothers, continues his exploration of love, loyalty, ambition, and the quiet, complicated bonds that hold families together.
Tony’s own life has been woven into the Welsh landscape: from childhood trips to the Pembrokeshire coast in the family’s Austin 7 — “Nelson”, named for its single headlight — to living in a former Welsh Penny School on the fringes of the Eryri National Park. In these choices, he honours the legacy of his grandmother Maude, born in Caerphilly and Welsh-speaking until the age of fourteen, whose roots run deep in the culture and language of her homeland.
A self-confessed “pantser”, Tony lets his characters set their own course, following them through unexpected turns rather than forcing their destinies. His prose favours the rhythm of natural speech, unafraid to break convention when the story demands it, often shot through with gentle humour and the quiet weight of lived experience.
Today, in his eighties, Tony lives with his artist wife, Bee, in a seafront apartment in Porthcawl, looking out across the Bristol Channel to the English coast beyond. The waves that crash against the rocks below are the same ones his father loved to watch on those 1950s day trips, and they remain a reminder that the past is never truly gone. Between them, Tony and Bee have six children, eight grandchildren, and one great-grandson scattered across the UK and the globe — a living testament to the enduring importance of family, the heartbeat of his work.
