The Journey to Le Repentir (Paperback)

Mark McWatt

ISBN 10: 1845230817 / ISBN 13: 9781845230814

Edité par Peepal Tree Press Ltd, Yorkshire, 2009

Paperback. Winner of the Guyana Prize Caribbean Award 2011 (Poetry).This is an immensely ambitious collection of poems, the fruit of more than a dozen years' work since the publication of Mark McWatt's Guyana prize-winning collection The Language of Eldorado in 1994 (his first collection Interiors won the Commonwealth Poetry prize in 1989). Strands of autobiography, a deeply sensuous ecology of place, historical narratives; the inner world of imagination and the often difficult realities of the postcolonial nation are interwoven in the collection's bold but carefully worked out architecture.The four parts of the book represent at one level linear phases of a life: childhood; adolescence and young manhood; maturity and the first intimations of ageing. Within each section there is an intersecting narrative sequence that sometimes complements, sometimes expands and sometimes run counter to the 'personal' narratives. In 'Mercator', poems in the voice of a nameless Elizabethan sea captain searching for Eldorado intertwine with semi-autobiographical poems about a boy's discovery of self and world in the remote northwest district of Guyana. In 'The Dark Constellation', poems about love and awakening sexuality are connected to a series of poems about Guyana's vast and powerful rivers. 'The Museum of Love' features a wholly imaginative narrative about the restless spirit of a young black boy, murdered by a plantation manager, who inhabits a sculpture in a museum and with his ragamuffin followers wreaks havoc on the works of art during the night. This is intercut with a sequence of poems on the theme of independence in life and politics, poems that reflect on the contrary impulses of creation and destruction. The final section 'Le Repentir' (which is the name of the main cemetery in Georgetown), explores a historical (and true) story of an accidental fratricide and the themes of guilt and expiation. This narrative connects to poems about mid-life and thoughts about old age and death.Mark McWatt is the recently retired Professor of West Indian literature at UWI, Cave Hill. He is joint editor of the Oxford Book of Caribbean Verse(2005). Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability. N° de réf. du vendeur 9781845230814

Synopsis :

Weaving together autobiography, historical narrative, postcolonial voices, and a deeply sensuous ecology of place, this bold and ambitious collection of poems explores four phases of life: childhood; adolescence and young manhood; maturity, and old age. Within each section an intersecting narrative sequence complements, expands, and runs counter to the main voice, creating a complex web of interconnecting themes that stretch throughout the entire work. Moving from the search for the fantastic El Dorado to the celebration of the powerful rivers of Guyana, these poems explore guilt, sexuality, identity, and independence in life and politics.

À propos de l'auteur: Mark McWatt is the author of two collections of poetry, Interiors and The Language of Eldorado, and a collection of short stories, Suspended Sentences: Fictions of Atonement, which won first prize in the 2006 Commonwealth Prize. He is also the coeditor of the Oxford Book of Caribbean Verse.

Détails bibliographiques

Titre : The Journey to Le Repentir (Paperback)
Éditeur : Peepal Tree Press Ltd, Yorkshire
Date d'édition : 2009
Reliure : Paperback
Etat : new