The West Indian Literature Conference: ‘Quiet Revolutions’

Most of the leading critics and several scholars in the field of Caribbean literature will assemble in Guyana this week for an international conference on West Indian literature hosted by the University of Guyana. The activities of this meeting will focus on three themes: a celebration of the centenary of the birth of Edgar Mittelholzer, a programme and academic panels in honour of Wilson Harris, and the main conference theme ‘The Quiet Revolutions in West Indian Literature.’

clipped from www.stabroeknews.com Another major West Indian writer whose work and theoretical ideas created a few ‘quiet revolutions’ in the literature is another Guyanese, highly celebrated fiction writer and critical theorist Wilson Harris. Harris, rather like Eddie Kamau Brathwaite, has been recognized as one of the most original Caribbean writers. He has influenced such radical departures from the former trends in modern fiction that he has created more than a quiet revolution; his style of narrative and “fictional autobiographies” have swept up such a storm among critics and writers that they have shaken up the complacency of the English novel.