I Can Hear the Cuckoo: Life in the Wilds of Wales

A memoir about grief, nature and what a small community in the Welsh valleys can teach us about life.

’A beautiful and poetic meditation on loss, nature, and what matters in life.’ - Nigel Warburton

From the BAFTA award-winning writer of The New Yorker short film, Heart Valley

Kiran Sidhu never thought she could leave London, but when her mother passes away, she knows she has to walk out of her old life and leave her toxic family behind. She chooses fresh air, an auditorium of silence and the purity of the natural world - and soon arrives in Cellan, a small, remote village nestled in the Welsh valleys.

At first, the barrenness and isolation is strange. But as the months wear on, Kiran starts to connect with the close-knit community she finds there; her neighbour Sarah, who shows her how to sledge when the winter snow arrives; Jane, a 70-year-old woman who lives at the top of a mountain with three dogs and four alpacas; and Wilf, the farmer who eats the same supper every day, and teaches Kiran that the cuckoo arrives in April and leaves in July.

Tender, philosophical and moving, I Can Hear the Cuckoo is a story about redefining family, about rebirth and renewal, and respecting the rhythm and timing of the earth. It’s a book about moving through grief and the people we find in the midst of our sadness - and what this small community in the Welsh countryside can teach us about life.

Kiran Sidhu is a freelance journalist and has written features, lifestyle and opinion pieces for The Guardian, Observer, Telegraph, The i Paper, The Independent, Metro, Woman magazine, Woman’s Own and Breathe magazine. Her article about her farmer friend Wilf was the 13th most read article in The Guardian in 2021, and was made into a short film Heart Valley, directed by Christian Cargill and produced by Pulse Films. In 2023 she won a BAFTA. She lives in the Welsh Valley with her husband.

www.Kiransidhu.co.uk
Twitter.com/KiranSidhu41