Palace of the Peacock – Wilson Harris
Palace of the Peacock by Wilson Harris / ISBN 9780571368044 / 136-page paperback with flaps from Faber Editions series (UK)
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The visionary masterpiece, tracing a riverboat crew’s dreamlike jungle voyage…
‘My new all time favourite book … A magnificent, breathtaking and terrifying novel.’ Tsitsi Dangarembga
‘An exhilarating experience … Makes visions real and reality visions … Genius.’ Jamaica Kincaid
‘A masterpiece: I love this book for its language, adventure and wisdoms.’ Monique Roffey
‘Revel in the inviolate, ever-deepening mystery of Wilson Harris’s work.’ Jeet Thayil
‘The Guyanese William Blake . Such poetic intensity.’ Angela Carter
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. Their domineering leader, Donne, is the spirit of a conquistador, 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; prose poem; modern myth; elegy to victims of colonial conquest: Wilson Harris’ masterpiece has defied definition for over sixty years, and is reissued for a new generation of readers.
‘One of the great originals … Visionary … Dazzlingly illuminating.’ Guardian
