The home which inspired Dylan Thomas will be the centrepiece of celebrations to mark the 50 years since his death.

Tours of the house in Cwmdonkin Drive - where Dylan Thomas wrote two-thirds of his poetry - will be on offer.

The Faroe Islands have a festival each year, they saw our website and said they wanted to do an event Sean Kier, cultural development officer

Visits to Laugharne and around Swansea city centre will also be available.

The year-long festival will culminate on 9 November, the date of the writer's death.

Sean Kier, cultural development officer at the Dylan Thomas Centre, said Dylan Thomas's popularity remained strong.

"He is the second-most quoted writer in the media - the first is Shakespeare," he said.

"This is the first time that there have ever been any guided tours about this in Swansea," he added.

Fans will be able to hire headsets so they can listen to some of Dylan's work as they are taken around the trails.

As well as the walks around Swansea, the year-long festival of celebration also includes dozens of events in south west Wales - and further afield.

Swansea City and County Council is organising the festival, which is expected to see thousands of extra visitors to the area.

Dolphin cruises

Talks, exhibitions, plays and book launches are planned as well as dolphin-watching cruises around Cardigan Bay to view the "cliff-perched toppling town", as he called it.

Events dedicated to the writer are also being laid on in the Faroe Islands.

"The Faroe Islands have a festival each year, they saw our website and said they wanted to do an event," said Mr Kier.

"We have had quite a few inquiries from abroad, mostly from America," he said.

Mr Kier said another highlight of the year would be a Mick Jagger film, called Map of Love, about Dylan Thomas.

Interest in the writer, who is buried in St Martin's graveyard in Laugharne, is as strong as ever.

Last year, an exhibition in the Dylan Thomas Centre in Swansea, about the writer, had 38,000 visitors.

Mr Kier said: "Over half of the searches done on the council's website come through the Dylan Thomas.org address, which shows the interest abroad."

The 2003 celebrations have already started with an exhibition of black-and-white photographs at the Dylan Thomas centre.