Sasenarine Persaud

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...In being both inside and outside Raj, Persaud is able both to create the Guyana of the eighties as seen very specifically from the perspective of the Indo-Guyanese, but also shows us how Raj's biases are constructed. Since V.S. Naipaul's classic novel The Mimic Men few other Caribbean writers have achieved that kind of complexity of vision.--Jeremy Poynting, Caricom Perspective

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

"A diverse and wide-ranging collection of poems . . . explored with his signature wit and skillful mastery of language . . . powerful images of nature are to be found in his accomplished use of metaphor and simile, which often renders the ordinary into something quite extraordinary . . . a finely balanced collection of work which carefully mixes the past with the present without ever resorting to sentimentality or pathos."—Lynne Macedo, Wasafiri

"Beguiling . . . masterly control"—Muse India

"In this collection, Persaud's elegant poems, though they linger heavily on loss, are quietly reassuring."—Bostonia

"Do not look for meaning and logic or even sense in these poems. Just submit yourself to enjoying the craft and the magic that results . . . Lines and stanzas break at seemingly unexpected times as only the accomplished can risk."—P.D. Sharma, Guyana Times