Novel
Palace of the Peacock
Wilson Harris · 1960
Synopsis
Donne, a cruel master of an estate in the interior, born in Guyana of European settlers, goes up a dangerous river with a motley crew, Cameron the Scot, da Silva the Portuguese, Carroll the African, Schomburgh the German and the Amerindian Vigilance, in pursuit of Mariella, a woman who has fled him. The narrator, the Dreamer, who lives the voyage as much as he dreams it, gradually understands that the crew has already attempted this journey upriver to the mythical city of the palace of the peacock, and that the voyage crosses the border between life and death.
Context
Written in 1959, the year its author left Guyana for London, the novel was accepted at Faber by T. S. Eliot and appeared in 1960. It draws on the expeditions the author had led as a surveyor on those same rivers, but abandons chronology and the stable identity of the characters, to the point that it has been ranked among the novels of magical realism. It opens a Guyanese quartet whose other three volumes appeared up to 1963. Jean-Pierre Durix translated it into French in 1979.
Who it is for
A short but difficult novel, without stable narrative landmarks: it asks the reader to accept losing their footing. Translated into French.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as a foundational text of the postcolonial novel and as a classic of Caribbean studies.
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