The records that were available to me indicate that the first book ever published about Guyana was The Discoverie of the Large, Rich, and Beautiful Empyre of Guiana (With a Relation of the Great and Golden Citie of Manoa (Which the Spanyards call El Dorado) and of the Provinces of Emeria, Aromaia, Amapaia, and Other Countries, with Their Riulers, Adjoyning by Sir Walter Raleigh, an Englishman in 1596. Much has been written about Guyana, though, despite the contributions of a number of fine novelists and poets including the likes of A J Seymour, Martin Carter, Sheik Sadeek, Roy Heath, Jasn Carew and E R Mittelholzer, I have heard it said that the contemporary literary tradition of this highly literate country is constrained by the fact that most of its contemporary published writers live abroad. More than that, some of the contemporary writings of these ‘exiled’ creative spirits (at least so it has been suggested) do not ‘speak to’ what one might call native themes. That may not diminish the quality of their writings though it means that people will inevitably question whether or not their writings can correctly be described as being part of Guyanese literature.
Ruel Johnson, winner of this year’s Guyana Prize for Literature (Best Book of Fiction) says he is on a mission to alter that condition.