Edgar Mittelholzer (1909-1965) and the Shaping of His Novels

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Edgar Mittelholzer (1909-1965) and the Shaping of His Novels EDGAR MITTELHOLZER (1909-1965) AND THE SHAPING OF HIS NOVELS by JUANITA ANNE WESTMAAS A thesis submitted to the University of Birmingham for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Centre of West African Studies School of Historical Studies University of Birmingham June 2013 University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. ABSTRACT This thesis is a response to the critics of the pioneering novelist Edgar Mittelholzer whose second novel was instrumental in paving the way for other Caribbean novelists during the 1950s. Critics of Mittelholzer have accused him of fascism, racism, an unhealthy interest in sexually sensationalist topics and death. He has until the recent centenary of his birth been marginalised and understudied. The first chapter of this thesis outlines the areas of study that have thus far been focused on and explores the underlying methods and theoretical framework of this thesis. The second chapter focuses on the author’s background, career and contribution to the Caribbean. The third explores the genesis of Mittelholzer’s creativity with a view to revealing how intertextuality is key to an understanding of his novels. It also discusses his creative use of the Middle Eastern notion of the Jinnee. The fourth chapter offers a critical analysis of The Life and Death of Sylvia and demonstrates how Mittelholzer employed the themes of sex, race and death. The fifth Chapter establishes that the texts of Yogi Ramacharaka were his primary source of inspiration and that Mittelholzer’s novels can be best understood in terms of the Oriental Occultist’s teachings. The sixth chapter explores Mittelholzer’s racial identity and finds that his mixed ancestry was a key source of creative inspiration. The final chapter concludes that further research is needed into his work and that an exploration of the intertextual references serves to clarify the author’s objectives. DEDICATION To the ‘Shadowed Breathing in the Room’ & To my husband, Roderick Westmaas - This thesis would never have been completed without your support - ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to record my especial gratitude to Dr Stewart Brown for supervising my thesis; to Dr Peter Fraser for generously setting aside time to encourage, guide and advise me; to Prof. Clem Seecharan and Rita Christian for encouraging me to persevere; to the Arts and Humanities Research Council and to the University of Birmingham for their financial assistance; to Ruth Windebank, Anna Mittelholzer, Dr Michael Gilkes, and the late Lucille Mittelholzer for allowing me to consult and quote from their private collections of Edgar Mittelholzer memorabilia including the author’s manuscripts, newspaper cuttings, personal correspondence and unpublished diary; to Jacqueline Ward for her support, years of friendship and invaluable insights into the life of her late husband, Edgar Mittelholzer; and to the many acquaintances, fellow-novelists, friends and family of Edgar Mittelholzer who willingly endured all my questioning. Special thanks are also due to the library staff and archivists of the following institutions: Barbados National Archives Beinecke Rare Books & Manuscript Library, Yale University British Library National Library of Guyana Princeton University The British Newspaper Archives (Colindale branch) University of Guyana University of Reading University of Sussex University of the West Indies (Cave Hill & St Augustine’s campuses) TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page No No. 1 INTRODUCTION 1 INTRODUCTION 1 Who was Edgar Mittelholzer? 1 MITTELHOLZER’S NEW LEASE OF LIFE 4 THE OBJECTIVES OF THE THESIS 5 KEY CRITICAL ASSESSMENTS 6 The 1960s 6 The 1970s 12 The 1980s 14 The 1990s 15 The 2000s 19 METHODOLOGY 20 A SUMMARY OF THE CHAPTERS TO FOLLOW 27 2 THE MAN, THE WRITER & HIS CAREER 32 INTRODUCTION 32 PUBLICATION HISTORY 33 The Prolific Novelist 33 Novels set in a Caribbean Locale 35 Novels set in an English Locale 38 MITTELHOLZER’S CAREER 40 Formation of the Man 40 The Pioneer: A Quiet Revolutionary 46 The Writer: Awaiting Fame 51 Success at Last 57 A Caribbean Voice 62 A Caribbean Exile 67 A Darkening Cloud of Opprobrium 70 Writing An Essay in Freedom 75 Re-Membering the Man 78 3 MITTELHOLZER’S CREATIVE GENES(IS) & THE GENI(US) 81 BEHIND IT INTRODUCTION 81 A MORNING AT THE OFFICE & MITTELHOLZER’S JEN 83 A Synopsis of A Morning at the Office 83 A Synopsis of “The Jen” 85 “The Jen” & the Critics 86 Unmasking the Jen 89 Who is the Jen’s Dreadful Friend? 95 Establishing a Literary Agenda 97 Subverting Negative Representations of Race 101 CORENTYNE THUNDER – A QUIET REVOLUTION 104 Corentyne Thunder: The Critics 104 A Swarthy Boy in the Corentyne 106 Corentyne Thunder & its Dialogic Intertexts 107 The Jinnee’s Release 121 4 THE LIFE AND DEATH OF SYLVIA 124 PUBLISHING SYLVIA 124 SYLVIA: A CRITICAL RECEPTION 126 SYLVIA’S GEORGETOWN SETTING 129 RADICAL BILDUNGSROMAN 143 THE TRAGIC MULATTO 147 Racial Constructs of the Social Self 150 The Theme of Sex: A Freudian Metaphor 155 The Sex-Sea Leitmotif 160 Music & Death: Sylvia’s Georgetown Symphony 162 Music as Metaphor 164 Music as a Structuring Device 166 Philosophy of Death 170 5 RELIGION & SEX 174 INTRODUCTION 174 MITTELHOLZER’S ‘RELIGIOUS’ BACKGROUND 175 Christian Childhood 175 Occult Entities in Guianese Folklore 175 The Appeal of Switching Faiths 177 Oriental Occultist Adulthood 179 Sex: normal physical function versus the demands of 182 religion MITTELHOLZER: THE PREACHER MAN 186 Intertextual Signposts 186 There is no God 188 The Laws of Nature 190 Life is Brutal 193 Eternal Man 196 A Quite Explicit Fuhrer? 199 Beyond Psychology: Psychic Projections/Phenomenon 201 THE SPIRIT – FLESH DIALECTIC 205 The Pair of Opposites 205 Achieving Balance 207 Bound by Rajas (or Passion) 209 Materialist, Romanticist, Crusader or Dilettante? 213 The Death of a ‘Free-Thinking’ Yogi 218 6 HOO-ARE-YOU? 222 INTRODUCTION 222 What I’m Not… 222 Shape-shifting: Tragic Mulatto, Human Mongrel or 223 Swarthy Boy? MITTELHOLZER’S NOVELS: CONSTRUCTING AN IDENTITY 226 A Morning at the Office (1950) 226 My Bones and My Flute (1955) 228 The Kaywana Trilogy – Children of Fire 233 CHOOSING SIDES 245 The Black Race: Creating a New Future 250 German to the Middle of his Soul 253 THE TRAGIC ‘MANQUE’ 256 Was Mittelholzer a Racist? 261 7 CONCLUSION 267 BIBLIOGRAPHY 271 APPENDICES 299 Appendix 1 – Creole Chip No. 9 300 Appendix 2 – Mittelholzer and Music 301 Appendix 2 – Publication History: Novels & Non-Fiction 302 Books CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION “[It] is the complex nature of […] social origins, and the conflicting loyalties involved in the scheme of […] race, class and economic status, which dictate that each must tread his own lone-wolf path of literary expression.”1 INTRODUCTION Who was Edgar Mittelholzer? Of Guianese2 birth, Edgar Austin Mittelholzer (1909-1965) was the first of the Caribbean literati to make a professional career out of writing novels. Several of his 22 novels were translated into at least six European languages with one – A Morning at the Office – being published by Penguin. Other published works include an anti-capitalist novella, a travel journal, an autobiography, numerous articles, short stories and poems. According to A J Seymour, he was known at the height of his career to millions of English- speaking people across the world, whilst others claimed that his novels were the “hottest sellers in the paperback market” and that his books would sell an average of 8,000 copies.3 The importance of his objectives as a novelist and success as a writer was recognised soon after the publication of Shadows Move Among Them (1952), when he became the first Caribbean to be awarded the esteemed Guggenheim Fellowship. The aforementioned novel, dramatised by Moss Hart, as The Climate of Eden, became the first Caribbean play to be staged 1 Mittelholzer, E. “Color, Class and Letters” in The Nation (New York: 17 January 1959) p. 57. 2 It should be noted that this thesis refers to the territory of Mittelholzer’s birth as British Guiana or Guiana as a means of underlining the colonial context into which the author had been born. British Guiana became independent from the United Kingdom in the year after Mittelholzer’s death (on 26th May 1966) and was named the Co-operative Republic of Guyana on 23rd of February 1970. The term Guyana is used to refer to events after his death or to critics whose works appear after 1966. 3 Cited in Lewis P, “Mittelholzer Found Dead” in Guiana Graphic (Georgetown: 7th May 1965) p. 6. 1 on Broadway (at the Martin Beck Theatre, New York) in 1953. The play, according to Wagner, secured a national television showing in the United States six years later.4 His novel, My Bones and My Flute was described in the Daily Telegraph as equal to the novels written by Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu (1814-1873), the leading ghost story writer of the 19th century.5 It was later dramatised for radio by Frances Farrier and is still remembered with awe and trepidation by many Guyanese listeners. At the time of his death, Mittelholzer was the most important literary figure that British Guiana had produced. But this was not just in terms of writing entertaining novels. In a tribute to the author on 10th May 1965, the Guianese Prime Minister, L S F Burnham referred to him as: “a great author who had done much to bring our art to the eyes of the world.
Recommended publications
  • Malcolm X and United States Policies Towards Africa: a Qualitative Analysis of His Black Nationalism and Peace Through Power and Coercion Paradigms
    Malcolm X and United States Policies towards Africa: A Qualitative Analysis of His Black Nationalism and Peace through Power and Coercion Paradigms by Abdul Karim Bangura, Ph.D. [email protected] Researcher-in-Residence, Abrahamic Connections and Islamic Peace Studies at the Center for Global Peace, American University; Director, The African Institution; Professor, Research Methodology and Political Science; Coordinator, National Conference on Undergraduate Research initiative at Howard University, Washington, DC; External Reader of Research Methodology at the Plekhanov Russian University, Moscow; Inaugural Peace Professor for the International Summer School in Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Peshawar in Pakistan; and International Director and Advisor to the Centro Cultural Guanin in Santo Domingo Este, Dominican Republic. The author is also the author of more than 75 books and more than 600 scholarly articles. The winner of more than 50 prestigious scholarly and community service awards, among Bangura’s most recent awards are the Cecil B. Curry Book Award for his African Mathematics: From Bones to Computers; the Diopian Institute for Scholarly Advancement’s Miriam Ma’at Ka Re Award for his article titled “Domesticating Mathematics in the African Mother Tongue” published in The Journal of Pan African Studies (now Africology: The Journal of Pan African Studies); the Special United States Congressional Award for “outstanding and invaluable service to the international community;” the International Center for Ethno- Religious Mediation’s Award for his scholarly work on ethnic and religious conflict resolution and peacebuilding, and promotion of peace and conflict resolution in conflict areas; and the Moscow Government Department of Multicultural Policy and Intergrational Cooperation Award for the scientific and practical nature of his work on peaceful interethnic and interreligious relations.
    [Show full text]
  • KYK-OVER-AL Volume 2 Issues 8-10
    KYK-OVER-AL Volume 2 Issues 8-10 June 1949 - April 1950 1 KYK-OVER-AL, VOLUME 2, ISSUES 8-10 June 1949-April 1950. First published 1949-1950 This Edition © The Caribbean Press 2013 Series Preface © Bharrat Jagdeo 2010 Introduction © Dr. Michael Niblett 2013 Cover design by Cristiano Coppola Cover image: © Cecil E. Barker All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without permission. Published by the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports, Guyana at the Caribbean Press. ISBN 978-1-907493-54-6 2 THE GUYANA CLASSICS LIBRARY Series Preface by the President of Guyana, H. E. Bharrat Jagdeo General Editors: David Dabydeen & Lynne Macedo Consulting Editor: Ian McDonald 3 4 SERIES PREFACE Modern Guyana came into being, in the Western imagination, through the travelogue of Sir Walter Raleigh, The Discoverie of Guiana (1595). Raleigh was as beguiled by Guiana’s landscape (“I never saw a more beautiful country...”) as he was by the prospect of plunder (“every stone we stooped to take up promised either gold or silver by his complexion”). Raleigh’s contemporaries, too, were doubly inspired, writing, as Thoreau says, of Guiana’s “majestic forests”, but also of its earth, “resplendent with gold.” By the eighteenth century, when the trade in Africans was in full swing, writers cared less for Guiana’s beauty than for its mineral wealth. Sugar was the poet’s muse, hence the epic work by James Grainger The Sugar Cane (1764), a poem which deals with subjects such as how best to manure the sugar cane plant, the most effective diet for the African slaves, worming techniques, etc.
    [Show full text]
  • Caribbean Voices Broadcasts
    APPENDIX © The Author(s) 2016 171 G.A. Griffi th, The BBC and the Development of Anglophone Caribbean Literature, 1943–1958, New Caribbean Studies, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-32118-9 TIMELINE OF THE BBC CARIBBEAN VOICES BROADCASTS March 11th 1943 to September 7th 1958 © The Author(s) 2016 173 G.A. Griffi th, The BBC and the Development of Anglophone Caribbean Literature, 1943–1958, New Caribbean Studies, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-32118-9 TIMELINE OF THE BBC CARIBBEAN VOICES EDITORS Una Marson April 1940 to December 1945 Mary Treadgold December 1945 to July 1946 Henry Swanzy July 1946 to November 1954 Vidia Naipaul December 1954 to September 1956 Edgar Mittelholzer October 1956 to September 1958 © The Author(s) 2016 175 G.A. Griffi th, The BBC and the Development of Anglophone Caribbean Literature, 1943–1958, New Caribbean Studies, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-32118-9 TIMELINE OF THE WEST INDIES FEDERATION AND THE TERRITORIES INCLUDED January 3 1958 to 31 May 31 1962 Antigua & Barbuda Barbados Dominica Grenada Jamaica Montserrat St. Kitts, Nevis, and Anguilla St. Lucia St. Vincent and the Grenadines Trinidad and Tobago © The Author(s) 2016 177 G.A. Griffi th, The BBC and the Development of Anglophone Caribbean Literature, 1943–1958, New Caribbean Studies, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-32118-9 CARIBBEAN VOICES : INDEX OF AUTHORS AND SEQUENCE OF BROADCASTS Author Title Broadcast sequence Aarons, A.L.C. The Cow That Laughed 1369 The Dancer 43 Hurricane 14 Madam 67 Mrs. Arroway’s Joe 1 Policeman Tying His Laces 156 Rain 364 Santander Avenue 245 Ablack, Kenneth The Last Two Months 1029 Adams, Clem The Seeker 320 Adams, Robert Harold Arundel Moody 111 Albert, Nelly My World 496 Alleyne, Albert The Last Mule 1089 The Rock Blaster 1275 The Sign of God 1025 Alleyne, Cynthia Travelogue 1329 Allfrey, Phyllis Shand Andersen’s Mermaid 1134 Anderson, Vernon F.
    [Show full text]
  • The Cambridge Companion to Postcolonial Poetry Edited by Jahan Ramazani Frontmatter More Information
    Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-09071-2 — The Cambridge Companion to Postcolonial Poetry Edited by Jahan Ramazani Frontmatter More Information the cambridge companion to postcolonial poetry The Cambridge Companion to Postcolonial Poetry is the first collection of essays to explore postcolonial poetry through regional, historical, political, formal, textual, gender, and comparative approaches. The essays encompass a broad range of English-speakers from the Caribbean, Africa, South Asia, and the Pacific Islands; the former settler colonies, such as Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, especially non-Europeans; Ireland, Britain’s oldest colony; and post- colonial Britain itself, particularly black and Asian immigrants and their descen- dants. The comparative essays analyze poetry from across the postcolonial anglophone world in relation to postcolonialism and modernism, fixed and free forms, experimentation, oral performance and creole languages, protest poetry, the poetic mapping of urban and rural spaces, poetic embodiments of sexuality and gender, poetry and publishing history, and poetry’s response to, and reimagining of, globalization. Strengthening the place of poetry in postco- lonial studies, this Companion also contributes to the globalization of poetry studies. jahan ramazani is University Professor and Edgar F. Shannon Professor of English at the University of Virginia. He is the author of five books: Poetry and its Others: News, Prayer, Song, and the Dialogue of Genres (2013); A Transnational Poetics (2009), winner of the 2011 Harry Levin Prize of the American Comparative Literature Association, awarded for the best book in comparative literary history published in the years 2008 to 2010; The Hybrid Muse: Postcolonial Poetry in English (2001); Poetry of Mourning: The Modern Elegy from Hardy to Heaney (1994), a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award; and Yeats and the Poetry of Death: Elegy, Self-Elegy, and the Sublime (1990).
    [Show full text]
  • Your Guide to the Classic Literature Collection
    Your Guide to the Classic Literature Collection. Electronic texts for use with Kurzweil 1000 and Kurzweil 3000. Revised March 27, 2017. Your Guide to the Classic Literature Collection – March 22, 2017. © Kurzweil Education, a Cambium Learning Company. All rights reserved. Kurzweil 1000 and Kurzweil 3000 are trademarks of Kurzweil Education, a Cambium Learning Technologies Company. All other trademarks used herein are the properties of their respective owners and are used for identification purposes only. Part Number: 125516. UPC: 634171255169. 11 12 13 14 15 BNG 14 13 12 11 10. Printed in the United States of America. 1 Introduction Introduction Kurzweil Education is pleased to release the Classic Literature Collection. The Classic Literature Collection is a portable library of approximately 1,800 electronic texts, selected from public domain material available from Web sites such as www.gutenberg.net. You can easily access the contents from any of Kurzweil Education products: Kurzweil 1000™, Kurzweil 3000™ for the Apple® Macintosh® and Kurzweil 3000 for Microsoft® Windows®. The collection is also available from the Universal Library for Web License users on K3000+firefly. Some examples of the contents are: • Literary classics by Jane Austen, Geoffrey Chaucer, Joseph Conrad, Charles Dickens, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Hermann Hesse, Henry James, William Shakespeare, George Bernard Shaw, Leo Tolstoy and Oscar Wilde. • Children’s classics by L. Frank Baum, Brothers Grimm, Rudyard Kipling, Jack London, and Mark Twain. • Classic texts from Aristotle and Plato. • Scientific works such as Einstein’s “Relativity: The Special and General Theory.” • Reference materials, including world factbooks, famous speeches, history resources, and United States law.
    [Show full text]
  • Vol 25 / No. 2 / November 2017 Volume 24 Number 2 November 2017
    1 Vol 25 / No. 2 / November 2017 Volume 24 Number 2 November 2017 Published by the discipline of Literatures in English, University of the West Indies CREDITS Original image: Self-portrait with projection, October 2017, img_9723 by Rodell Warner Anu Lakhan (copy editor) Nadia Huggins (graphic designer) JWIL is published with the financial support of the Departments of Literatures in English of The University of the West Indies Enquiries should be sent to THE EDITORS Journal of West Indian Literature Department of Literatures in English, UWI Mona Kingston 7, JAMAICA, W.I. Tel. (876) 927-2217; Fax (876) 970-4232 e-mail: [email protected] OR Ms. Angela Trotman Department of Language, Linguistics and Literature Faculty of Humanities, UWI Cave Hill Campus P.O. Box 64, Bridgetown, BARBADOS, W.I. e-mail: [email protected] SUBSCRIPTION RATE US$20 per annum (two issues) or US$10 per issue Copyright © 2017 Journal of West Indian Literature ISSN (online): 2414-3030 EDITORIAL COMMITTEE Evelyn O’Callaghan (Editor in Chief) Michael A. Bucknor (Senior Editor) Glyne Griffith Rachel L. Mordecai Lisa Outar Ian Strachan BOOK REVIEW EDITOR Antonia MacDonald EDITORIAL BOARD Edward Baugh Victor Chang Alison Donnell Mark McWatt Maureen Warner-Lewis EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD Laurence A. Breiner Rhonda Cobham-Sander Daniel Coleman Anne Collett Raphael Dalleo Denise deCaires Narain Curdella Forbes Aaron Kamugisha Geraldine Skeete Faith Smith Emily Taylor THE JOURNAL OF WEST INDIAN LITERATURE has been published twice-yearly by the Departments of Literatures in English of the University of the West Indies since October 1986. Edited by full time academics and with minimal funding or institutional support, the Journal originated at the same time as the first annual conference on West Indian Literature, the brainchild of Edward Baugh, Mervyn Morris and Mark McWatt.
    [Show full text]
  • The Edgar Mittelholzer Memorial Lectures
    BEACONS OF EXCELLENCE: THE EDGAR MITTELHOLZER MEMORIAL LECTURES VOLUME 3: 1986-2013 Edited and with an Introduction by Andrew O. Lindsay 1 Edited by Andrew O. Lindsay BEACONS OF EXCELLENCE: THE EDGAR MITTELHOLZER MEMORIAL LECTURES - VOLUME 3: 1986-2013 Preface © Andrew Jefferson-Miles, 2014 Introduction © Andrew O. Lindsay, 2014 Cover design by Peepal Tree Press Cover photograph: Courtesy of Jacqueline Ward All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without permission. Published by the Caribbean Press. ISBN 978-1-907493-67-6 2 Contents: Tenth Series, 1986: The Arawak Language in Guyanese Culture by John Peter Bennett FOREWORD by Denis Williams .......................................... 3 PREFACE ................................................................................. 5 THE NAMING OF COASTAL GUYANA .......................... 7 ARAWAK SUBSISTENCE AND GUYANESE CULTURE ........................................................................ 14 Eleventh Series, 1987. The Relevance of Myth by George P. Mentore PREFACE ............................................................................... 27 MYTHIC DISCOURSE......................................................... 29 SOCIETY IN SHODEWIKE ................................................ 35 THE SELF CONSTRUCTED ............................................... 43 REFERENCES ....................................................................... 51 Twelfth Series, 1997: Language and National Unity by Richard Allsopp CHAIRMAN’S FOREWORD
    [Show full text]
  • Art of Wilson Harris
    THE ART OF WILSON HARRIS BY MMilON C. GILLILMD A DI.^SERTATIOi:! PRESENTED TO ItlE G.R.\DUATE COUNCII OE TEE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFI1.LMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGR.ee OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY LT^TIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 1982 Copyright 19B2 by Marion Charlotte Gilliland TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract iv Introduction The Visionary Art of \vilson Harris 1 N otes 14 Part I Contexts of Vision Chapter 1 An Overview of the Fiction 17 Notes 35 Chapter 2 Wilson Harris in the West Indian Context 37 Notes 60 Chapter 3 The Role of Imaginaticn in Creativity 63 Notes 78 Chapter 4 Three Structuring Ideas in Wilson Harris's Fiction 81 Notes 115 Part II Visionary Texts Chapter 5 Companioas of the Day and Night 119 Note s ' 133 Chapter 6 Da Silva da Silva's Cultivated Wilderness , . 134 Notes 154 Chapter 7 Genesis of the Clowns 155 Notes c . 170 Chapter 8 The Tree of the Sun 171 Note 184 Appendix Three Interviews with Wilson Harris Synchrcnlcity 186 Shamanisiu 205 The Eye of the Scarecrow 227 Bibliography 244 Biographical Sketch 260 Xll Abstract of Dissertation Presented to the Graduate Council of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy THE ART OF WILSON HARRIS By Marion C. Gilliland December 1982 Chairman: Alistair M. Duckworth Major Department: English Wilson Harris, the Guyanese novelist, critic and poet, seeks to create new forms in the novel which will reflect his vision of the basic unity of man. This unity is free of cultural and racial ties, embodies a new state of consciousness, healed rather than divided, and is open to greater possibilities of human fulfillment for all men.
    [Show full text]
  • ABSTRACT POWELL, ETHEL ANNE. Ghosts of Chances for Redemption
    ABSTRACT POWELL, ETHEL ANNE. Ghosts of Chances for Redemption via Abjection in Wilson Harris’s Palace of the Peacock and Others. (Under the direction of Deborah Wyrick.) This thesis explores, in three works of literature, possibilities for redemption via abjection. Julia Kristeva’s semanalysis is the primary theoretical tool with which Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko (1688) is examined as a nascent work in Caribbean literature. Next, and central to this thesis, the Guyanese Wilson Harris’s The Palace of the Peacock (1960) is discussed within Kristevan context and within Caribbeanist literary critical context. Mariella, a central and fluid character in Palace, acts as a semiotic agent of destruction and of abjectly sublime redemption for Donne and his crew of river boatmen in pursuit of Other ethnically mixed peoples in Guyana’s interior. Donne’s moment of epiphany, wherein he comes to understand how inhumanely he has treated Others, is followed by his “second” death and rebirth in a celestial palace (along with the rest of the crew), marking his and their transformation from abject slavers to abjectly sublime and redeemed beings. The semiotic linguistic characteristics of Palace are investigated: while written in the style of Magical Realism, Palace contains lexical and dialectal features stemming from African and Amerindian influences. Flannery O’Connor’s “Revelation” (1965) is the final work examined. Via legacies of plantation slavery and ensuing discrimination against freed African-Americans, many works of Southern U.S. literature contain qualities of postcolonial literatures, particularly the element of abject Otherness. In “Revelation” Mrs. Ruby Turpin’s ideas about abject Others are transformed, as she is transformed from an abject avatar of white Southern racism and classism, into an abjectly sublime person who receives a “revelation” of her wrongs righted in a celestial march of all human beings.
    [Show full text]
  • Flight Lieutenant Cy Grant
    PEOPLE PROFILE BATTLE OF THE RUHR Flight Lieutenant Cy Grant The Battle of the Ruhr was a five month long campaign of strategic bombing of a major industrial Cy Grant moved from and his fellow prisoners area of Germany called the Ruhr. The targets British Guiana to the were forced to march in included armament factories, synthetic oil plants, coke plants, steelworks and dams. UK to join the RAF, as deep snow, with little rations, sleeping in barns and then the year before the being transported in cattle Operation Chastise was part of this battle and the RAF had removed its trucks to Lukenwalde, just official name for attacks on Germans dams on 16-17 bar and allowed blacks south of Berlin. By the end May 1943. The RAF Squadron that carried out the of the war, they were freed attacks were known as the ‘Dambusters’ and they Cy Grant published his from the colonies to by the Russians who ripped used specially developed ‘bouncing bombs.’ memoirs under the title join its ranks. down the fences with their ‘A Member of the RAF of tanks. Indeterminate Race*’. He got Operation Chastise: Fact File By 1943 Grant had received the attack on the Moehne, the title from a caption below D.O.B 8 November 1919 a commission and was one After the war he studied law Eder and Sorpe Dams by a picture of him in a German P.O.B British Guiana and qualified as a barrister No. 617 Squadron RAF of the few black officers in on the night of 16/17 May Newspaper in July 1943 “Ein Years of Service the RAF.
    [Show full text]
  • Newsletter 2020-02
    Newsletter Issue No. 93 February 2020 In January our speaker was Chris Vaspar who came to tell us of his experiences of the Marathon des Sables, a gruelling six-day ultra-marathon in the Moroccan Sahara desert in six stages, said to be the toughest foot race in the world. Runners have to be self-sufficient, carrying with them all food and equipment for one week. Water is rationed at 14 litres a day and if you exceed the ration, you get a time penalty. In just six days competitors run over 156 miles through endless dunes, over steep and rocky jebels, and across white-hot salt plains. Each stage must be completed in the time allowed, the fourth stage is two consecutive marathons in 35 hours.The exceptional fifth stage is 52 miles and is run all day and overnight, the final sixth stage is a mere marathon run! A camel train follows the runners with the overnight tented accommodation and if the camels catch up with you - you are out of the race! Former soldier Chris explained that he was looking for a challenge during a quiet time in his life and with a like-minded friend decided to attempt the 2016 event raising money for the forces charity Walking With The Wounded, which helps injured former British Armed Forces servicemen and women transition into civilian life. Once completed he immediately signed up for the 2018 event. Prior to this Chris had no experience of long-distance running, so extensive training was imperative, increasing his running and walking to 80-90 miles a week, gaining heat acclimatisation in a sauna (in full kit) after treadmill exercise, and especially two sessions at Loughborough University’s Ergonomic Training Facility, treadmill running at 40 degrees and 10% humidity.
    [Show full text]
  • Island People
    ISLAND PEOPLE [BIBLIOGRAPHY & FURTHER READING] JOSHUA JELLY-SCHAPIRO Island People: Bibliography and Further Reading www.joshuajellyschapiro.com ISLAND PEOPLE The Caribbean and the World By Joshua Jelly-Schapiro [Knopf 2016/Canongate 2017] Bibliography & Further Reading The direct source materials for Island People, and for quotations in the text not deriving from my own reporting and experience, are the works of history, fiction, film and music, along with primary documents from such archiVes as the West Indiana and Special Collections division at the University of the West Indies library in St. Augustine, Trinidad, enumerated in the “Notes” at the back of the book. But as essential to its chapters’ background, and to my explorations of indiVidual islands and their pasts, is a much larger body of literature—the wealth of scholarly and popular monographs on Antillean history and culture that occupy students and teachers in the burgeoning academic field of Caribbean Studies. What follows is a distilled account, more suggestiVe than comprehensiVe, of that bibliography’s essential entries, focusing on those books and other sources informing the stories and ideas contained in my book—and that comprise something like a list of Vital reading for those wishing to go further. Emphasis is here giVen to works in English, and to foreign-language texts that have been published in translation. Exceptions include those Spanish- and French- language works not yet published into English but which form an essential part of any good library on the islands in question. 1 Island People: Bibliography and Further Reading www.joshuajellyschapiro.com Introduction: The Caribbean in the World Start at the beginning.
    [Show full text]