Moses Nagamootoo was born in Whim Village on the Corentyne, Guyana. His parents were first generation Guyana-born offspring of Indian immigrants who came from Madras. Whim was a predominantly Madrasi village and Moses Nagamootoo grew up in a community with its own traditions of Kali-mai worship, styles of drumming and food preferences which made them distinct from the majority of Indo-Guyanese whose ancestors came from North India.
"He has worked as a teacher, a journalist and studied law. He has since his youth been an activist member of the PPP and from 1992 to 1999 was a member of the Guyanese parliament and held the portfolio of Minister of Information. He is currently on study leave completing his legal studies.
He was a contributor of poems to a PYO (Progressive Youth Organisation -- the radical youth wing of the PPP) For the Fighting Front (1974). His Hendree’s Cure: Scenes from Madrasi Life in a New World (Peepal Tree, 2000), a work of documentary fiction, is a libation to the Madrasi world of his youth."
