Palace of the Peacock (Faber Editions)

About the Author

Sir Wilson Harris was a prize-winning novelist, poet, essayist, and lecturer. Born in 1921 in British Guiana, his father died when he was two and his stepfather disappeared into the rainforests in 1929. He began working as a government surveyor in 1942 and led expeditions into the Amazonian interior for almost 15 years. In 1959 he left for England to become a full-time writer. The following year, T.S. Eliot published his debut novel, Palace of the Peacock, which became a landmark of Caribbean literature and the first of The Guyana Quartet. Over the course of his career, Faber published all 26 of Harris' novels, including The Carnival Trilogy, Jonestown, The Mask of the Beggar, and The Ghost of Memory. Harris was awarded numerous academic fellowships and honorary doctorates as well as being a Guggenheim Fellow. He twice won the Guyana Prize for Literature as well as a Lifetime Achievement Prize from the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards. Harris was knighted in 2010, and died in 2018 at the age of 96.

'A towering figure ... What power sprang from Harris's newly forged language ... Breathtaking.' Guardian

Jamaica Kincaid was born in Antigua in 1949. In 1965 she left for America to work as an au pair before studying photography and launching her career as a legendary author, working as a staff writer at the New Yorker from 1974 to 1996. Her first book in 1983 was the story collection At The Bottom of the River, and her acclaimed novels include Annie John, Lucy, The Autobiography of My Mother, and Mr Potter. She has also written non-fiction, such as her chronicle of her brother's battle with AIDS, My Brother, as well as My Garden and Among Flowers. She is currently Professor of African and African American Studies at Harvard University.