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Palace of the Peacock
- Faber Editions
- Narrated by: Don Warrington
- Length: 3 hrs and 49 mins
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Palace of the Peacock
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Summary
A radical landmark in Caribbean literature, reissued with a new foreword by Jamaica Kincaid to mark Wilson Harris' centenary: this visionary masterpiece tracing the dreamlike voyage of a riverboat crew through the jungle defies definition 60 years on.
I dreamt I awoke with one dead seeing eye and one living closed eye....
A crew of men are embarking on a voyage up a turbulent river through the rainforests of Guyana. Donne, their wild, domineering leader, is obsessed with hunting for a mysterious woman and exploiting Indigenous people as plantation labour. But their expedition is plagued by tragedies, haunted by drowned ghosts: spectres of the crew themselves, inhabiting a blurred shadowland between life and death. As their journey into the interior—their own hearts of darkness—deepens, it assumes a spiritual dimension, guiding them towards a new destination: the Palace of the Peacock....
A modernist fever dream, hallucinatory prose poem, modern myth, elegy to victims of colonial conquest: Wilson Harris' visionary masterpiece has defied definition for over 60 years and is reissued for a new generation of listeners.
Critic reviews
"An exhilarating experience.... Makes visions real and reality visions.... Genius." (Jamaica Kincaid)
"The Guyanese William Blake. [Such] poetic intensity." (Angela Carter)
"Staggering.... Brilliant and terrifying." (The Times)