(Theodore) Wilson Harris - Further reading

Novelist, born in New Amsterdam, NE Guyana. He studied at Queen's College, Georgetown, and worked as a surveyor. In 1959 he moved to London, UK. One of the pre-eminent Caribbean writers, his masterpiece is The Guyana Quartet (1985, a compilation of novels written 1960–3); starting with a poetic exploration, it evolves into a composite picture of Guyana, its various landscapes and racial communities. Later works include The Four Banks of the River of Space (1990) and Jonestown (1996).

He came to England in 1959 and published his first novel Palace of the Peacock in 1960.This became the first of a quartet of novels, The Guyana Quartet, which consists of The Far Journey of Oudin (1961), The Whole Armour (1962), and The Secret Ladder (1963).

Bibliography

Novels
Palace of the Peacock, 1960
The Far Journey of Oudin, 1961
The Whole Armour, 1962
The Secret Ladder, 1963
Heartland, 1964
The Eye of the Scarecrow, 1965
The Waiting Room, 1967
Tumatumari, 1968
Ascent to Omai, 1970
The Sleepers of Roraima (illustrated by Kay Usborne), 1970
The Age of the Rainmakers (illustrated by Kay Usborne), 1971
Black Marsden: A Tabula Rasa Comedy, 1972
Companions of the Day and Night, 1975
Enigma of Values: An Introduction, 1975
Da Silva da Silva's Cultivated Wilderness/Genesis of the Clowns, 1977
The Tree of the Sun, 1978
The Angel at the Gate, 1982
Carnival, 1985
The Guyana Quartet (Palace of the Peacock, The Far Journey of Oudin,The Whole Armour, The Secret Ladder), 1985
The Four Banks of the River of Space, 1990
The Radical Imagination (essays), 1992
Resurrection at Sorrow Hill, 1993
The Carnival Trilogy (The Infinite Rehearsal, The Four Banks of the River of Space, Carnival), 1993
Jonestown, 1996
Selected Essays, 1999
The Dark Jester, 2001
The Mask of the Beggar, 2003

Short stories
The Sleepers of Roraima, 1970
The Age of the Rainmakers, 1971

Poetry
Fetish Miniature Poets Series, 1951
The Well and the Land, 1952
Eternity to Season, 1954

Nonfiction
Tradition and the West Indian Novel (lecture), 1965
Tradition, the Writer and Society: Critical Essays, 1967
History, Fable and Myth in the Caribbean and Guianas, 1970
Fossil and Psyche, 1974
Explorations: A Series of Talks and Articles 1966- 1981, 1981
The Womb of Space: The Cross-Cultural Imagination, 1983
The Infinite Rehearsal, 1987

Prizes and awards

1987 Guyana Prize for Literature
1992 Premio Mondello dei Cinque Continenti
2002 Guyana Prize for Literature (Special Award)

Further reading

Adler, Joyce Sparer.