Wilson Harris

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Sir Wilson Harris (born March 24, 1921 in New Amsterdam , † March 8, 2018 in Chelmsford ) was a Guyanese writer who was best known for his novels . He also published poetry and essays .

life and work

Harris studied in Georgetown . As a surveyor, he led several expeditions into the interior of Guyana before emigrating to England in 1959, where he published his first novel Palace of the Peacock in 1960 . Together with the three following novels, he forms Harris' so-called Guyana Quartet . Harris' work is influenced by his time as a surveyor; it often takes place in the Guyanese hinterland and is rich in landscape descriptions. A recurring theme is the relationship between Western culture and the colonized territories and peoples. Repeatedly he related Caribbean and South American myths to basic works of European literature and tried to uncover parallels that should enable new perspectives on both cultures. In his Carnival Trilogy he dealt with the Odyssey , the Divina Commedia and the fabric of fists. His style is abstract, complex and sometimes fantastic ; He rejects realism because he associates it with imperialism and considers it to be inadequate for describing Caribbean and South American environments.

Various critics made attempts to classify Harris' work in literary history; he himself expressed disapproval of categorizations. Frequent comparisons relate to literary modernism as well as magical realism . Although he expressed admiration for Alejo Carpentier and Octavio Paz , Harris rejected the term as such, considering it an inappropriate oversimplification. He himself expressed a sympathy for the concept of negative capability coined by John Keats - the demand for the artist's ability to accept that not every complex issue can simply be resolved. He expressed himself explicitly against postmodern poetics, which he regards as "nihilistic". His theoretical writings are considered to be existentialist , in some cases they are also close to the positions of Martin Buber and Carl Gustav Jung .

Harris was twice awarded the Guyana Prize for Literature ; In 2010 he was beaten to the Knight Bachelor . He refused permission to write a biography about him because he believed that all important information about him could be found in his work.

On March 8, 2018, he died a few days before his 97th birthday.

bibliography

Novels

  • Palace of the Peacock , 1960
  • The Far Journey of Oudin , 1961
  • The Whole Armor , 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 , 1970
  • The Age of the Rainmakers , 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 Infinite Rehearsal , 1987
  • The Four Banks of the River of Space , 1990
  • Resurrection at Sorrow Hill , 1993
  • The Carnival Trilogy ( Carnival , The Infinite Rehearsal , The Four Banks of the River of Space ), 1993
  • Jonestown , 1996
  • The Dark Jester , 2001
  • The Mask of the Beggar , 2003
  • The Ghost of Memory , 2006

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

Essays and lectures

  • Tradition and the West Indian Novel , 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 Radical Imagination (essays) , 1992
  • Selected Essays , 1999

literature

  • Hena Maes-Jelinek: The Labyrinth of Universality. Wilson Harris's Visionary Art of Fiction (= Cross-Cultures 86). Rodopi, Amsterdam et al. 2006, ISBN 90-420-2032-6 .

Web links

supporting documents

  1. ↑ Message of Condolence from His Excellency, David Granger, President of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana on the passing of Sir Theodore Wilson Harris- March 24, 1921- March 8, 2018 , accessed March 9, 2018
  2. ^ Eugene Benson, LW Conolly (Ed.): Encyclopedia of Post-Colonial Literatures in English. Volume 2. 2nd edition. Routledge, London et al. 2005, ISBN 0-415-27887-2 , pp. 630ff.
  3. ^ Hena Maes-Jelinek: The Labyrinth of Universality. 2006, p. Xv ff.
  4. ^ Hena Maes-Jelinek: The Labyrinth of Universality. 2006, p. Xvi.
  5. ↑ contemporarywriters.com ( December 15, 2010 memento on the Internet Archive ), viewed August 6, 2010
  6. ↑ Guyana's Wilson Harris Receives Knighthood. In: kaieteurnewsonline.com. June 12, 2010, accessed December 6, 2018 .
  7. ^ Hena Maes-Jelinek: The Labyrinth of Universality. 2006, p. Xiii.
  8. ^ Sir Wilson Harris obituary , accessed March 10, 2018
personal data
SURNAME Harris, Wilson
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Guyanese writer
DATE OF BIRTH March 24, 1921
PLACE OF BIRTH New Amsterdam (Guyana)
DATE OF DEATH March 8, 2018
Place of death Chelmsford