In his tale of a doomed crew beating their way up-river through the jungles of Guyana, first published in 1960, Wilson Harris revealed the unique poetic vision and laid out the themes and designs, not only of his famous work, The Guyana Quartet, but of all his future work. The Palace of the Peacock displays that vision in all its hallucinatory vividness, given additional impact by its rejection of the conventions of the twentieth-century novel and the uncompromising energy of its use of language in its response to character and landscape. The compelling adventure story of the narrative is para... continue
Grace Nichols gives us images that stare us straight in the eye, images of joy, challenge, accusation. Her 'fat black woman' is brash; rejoices in herself; poses awkward questions to politicians, rulers, suitors, to a white world that still turns its back. Grace Nichols writes in a language that is wonderfully vivid yet economical of the pleasures and sadnesses of memory, of loving, of 'the power to be what I am, a woman, charting my own futures'.
‘I was utterly mesmerized… powerful, moving, and heartwarming… I devoured this book, and it is no doubt a five-star read.’ Goodreads reviewer Perhaps it’s true that absence makes the heart grow fonder. Perhaps it’s true that you only know what you truly love when you no longer have it. But I wouldn’t have known any of this if I hadn’t left it all behind to discover where my home truly was… Growing up in British Guiana in the 1950s, Sharon Maas has everything a shy child with a vivid imagination could wish for. She spends her days studying bugs in the backyard, eating fresh mangos straight from... continue
The whole purpose of magic is the fulfilment and intensification of desire, claims the ventriloquist-narrator as he tells his stories of love and catastrophe. The novel is a parable of miscegenation and racial exclusiveness, of nature defying culture and of the rebellious nature of love.