Activity: Readings
Host: Moray House Trust
Date: Tuesday, 25 November 2014
“We belong to a short-lived family and people. It’s so easy to succumb and die. It’s the usual thing in this country as you well know.” Thus speaks Donne, a character in Palace of the Peacock. Moray House Trust hosted an overview of some of Harris’ oeuvre by Dr Joyce Jonas with extracts read by Paloma Mohamed, Russel Lancaster, Stanley Greaves, Vanda Radzik and Michella Ali.
Born in Guyana in 1921, Wilson studied at Queen’s College and worked as a government surveyor before becoming a lecturer and writer. His first novel, Palace of the Peacock, was published in 1960. His canon comprises a score of novels, two volumes of short stories, poems and essays on post-colonial literary criticism. His aim throughout, according to Dr Jonas, has been “to explore the psyche of the Guyanese people, and indeed the psyche of the colonizer/colonizer wherever it occurs.”
As a writer and critic, Wilson Harris realised from the outset that the post-colonial West Indies would have to devise its own forms of writing in order to shape its own narrative and adequately reflect its realities. This, as Dr Joyce Jonas pointed out, necessitated “a revolution in the form of the novel. He dispenses with the linear time-line. He dispenses with a clear outline of individual character.” As another critic who was quoted put it, Harris “has tried to widen the scope of the Caribbean imagination.”
VIDEO CLIPS
1: Wilson Harris: Intro by Dr Jonas: https://youtu.be/jR5JuiEB1II
2: The psyche of the Guyanese People: https://youtu.be/XhHeRva3Fn8
3: Palace of the Peacock: https://youtu.be/iERSUzyVtvU
4: The origins of our society: https://youtu.be/l9EwGnackd0
5: How to read Wilson Harris: https://youtu.be/ppOoals_Hds
IN ADDITION:
Chapter & Verse: Wilson Harris: https://youtu.be/mL9AE8PhmAo