An unnamed narrator in 1960s London reflects on three periods of his life in Guyana which altered his understanding of the world. In 1948 he witnesses a march of workers protesting the killing of their comrades by police during a bitter strike; and so begins a radical revision of Wordsworth's strategy of exploring imagination, memory and event in The Prelude.

Harris challenges the reader by removing the props of linear narrative and conventional characterisation, offering in their place a Proustian richness of sensuous associations - proof positive of his status as one of the Caribbean's most original and visionary writers.

Wilson Harris was born in Guyana in 1921. Resident in the UK since 1959, since his retirement he has been in demand as visiting professor and writer in residence at many leading universities. He has twice won the Guyana Prize for Literature. In 2010 he was knighted in 2010 for his services to literature.

About the Author
Wilson Harris was born in New Amsterdam in British Guiana, with a background which embraces African, European and Amerindian ancestry. Between 1945-1961, Harris was a regular contributor of stories, poems and essays to Kyk-over-Al and part of a group of Guyanese intellectuals that included Martin Carter, Sidney Singh, Ivan Van Sertima and Milton Williams. His first publication was a chapbook of poems, Fetish, (1951) under the pseudonym Kona Waruk, followed by the more substantial Eternity to Season (1954) which announced Harris's commitment to a cross-cultural vision in the arts, linking the Homeric to the Guyanese. Harris's first published novel was Palace of the Peacock (1969), followed by a further 23 novels with The Ghost of Memory (2006) as the most recent. His novels comprise a singular, challenging and uniquely individual vision of the possibilities of spiritual and cultural transcendance out of the fixed empiricism and cultural boundedness that Harris argues has been the dominant Caribbean mode of thought.


Book Information
ISBN 9781845231644
Author Wilson Harris
Format Paperback
Page Count 112
Imprint Peepal Tree Press Ltd
Publisher Peepal Tree Press Ltd
Weight(grams) 155g