The Ghost of Bellow's Man
When Raj, a reluctant schoolteacher with a weakness for schoolgirls, Hindu activist and would-be published novelist, protests against a breach of tradition at his temple, he is confronted by a trail of corrupted power which leads to the heart of the post-colonial Guyanese state.
Price
£8.99
Author(s)
Sasenarine Persaud
ISBN number
9780948833311
Pages
188
Price
£8.99
Classification
Fiction, Novel
Country setting
Guyana
Publication date
01 Nov 1991

By turns acutely perceptive and self-deceiving, a quirky individualist and a stickler for convention, self-aggrandising and self-mocking, Raj is a dangling man, desperate to create something of value in a shabby and corrupt despotism. Forced to look inwards, he discovers that the truth-telling must begin with himself.

Persaud portrays the Indo-Guyanese community in the early 1980s as a community under intense stress. When sections of the leadership of Hindu organisations have come to an uneasy accommodation with the authoritarian corruption of Fox Burton’s African-dominated ruling party, the breach of convention of taking chairs into their temple takes on a huge symbolic significance for the temple’s young activists. For them, promoting Hinduism amongst an increasingly secularised Indo-Guyanese community has become an act of ethnic survival.

'... Poetic in tone, surrealistic in thrust... a good addition to Caribbean literature.' The Caribbean Writer.

Sasenarine Persaud was born in Guyana. He has published two novels, a collection of stories and four collections of poetry. He currently lives and works in the USA.

Variations

Sasenarine Persaud

Sasenarine Persaud is the author of twelve books: nine poetry collections, including Demerary Telepathy (Peepal Tree, 1989) and The Wintering Kundalini (Peepal Tree); two novels published by Peepal Tree Press, Dear Death and The Ghost of Bellow's Man, and a collection of short fiction, Canada Geese and Apple Chatney. His awards include: the KM Hunter Foundation Award (Toronto), the Epstein Fellowship at Boston University, from which he has a Master's in Creative Writing, and fiction and poetry awards from The Canada Council and the Ontario Arts Council. Persaud was born in Guyana and has lived in Canada for several years. He presently resides in Florida.
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