Prash and Ras
Disparate worlds collide in Williams's two novellas. In 'My Planet of Ras' a young German woman joins a Rastafarian commune in Jamaica. Under the guidance of Selassie, reader and healer with herbs, Ikael, artist-painter, and Kilmanjaro, master drummer, and under the healing influence of 'the herb of nations' she learns to marvel, and to understand the true nature of community ('You and I talking, one and one - that is community!
Price
£8.99
Author(s)
N.D. Williams
ISBN number
9781900715003
Pages
192
Price
£8.99
Classification
Fiction, Novel
Country setting
United States of America
Jamaica
Guyana
Publication date
01 Nov 1997

Disparate worlds collide in Williams's two novellas. In 'My Planet of Ras' a young German woman joins a Rastafarian commune in Jamaica. Under the guidance of Selassie, reader and healer with herbs, Ikael, artist-painter, and Kilmanjaro, master drummer, and under the healing influence of 'the herb of nations' she learns to marvel, and to understand the true nature of community ('You and I talking, one and one - that is community! Hardest thing to build these days. Not enough empty reflecting silence, like mortar, to build with'). Williams' portrayal of the rootedness, the inner calm and visionary enlightment of the group is movingly convincing, not least because the novella realistically conveys the group's vulnerability, temptations and the costs of their denials. In their rejection of materialism and competition, they indeed have to live as if they are on another planet, constantly threatened by the surrounding Babylon.

'What Happening There, Prash', is a contrary and equally convincing portrayal of the magnetic pull of North America and its offer of the possibilities of individual recognition, competitive edge and material success. Prash and his wife Sookmoon abandon the decaying 'socialist' republic of Guyana for New York and for Sookmoon, at least, there is the chance, eagerly seized, to remake her life as a liberated woman. But when Prash gets mixed up in some serious drugs business, he discovers that the freedom of the market has its price.

Variations

N.D. Williams

N.D. Williams was born in Guyana in 1942. He went to Jamaica as a research student to study at Mona in the late 1960s and was very much involved in the student/youth uprising of the Rodney affair in 1968. He writes of being powerfully influenced by the radical, nativist currents in Jamaican culture - reggae and yard theatre - of this period. He had stories published in Jamaica Journal and Savacou and in the anthologies, One People’s Grief (1983) and Best West Indian Stories.
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