Caribbean Modern Classics

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.