Start here
Buxton Spice
Oonya Kempadoo
Novel, 1998
A girl's coming of age in a Guyanese village in the 1970s, amid the country's socialist-era politics and everyday life.
Books by country South America
Books set in Guyana
Six books by writers from Guyana, set there, that give a real sense of the place, starting with Buxton Spice and Palace of the Peacock.
About the literature of Guyana
Guyanese writing is perhaps best known for Wilson Harris's Palace of the Peacock, a visionary journey up a river into the rainforest. Guyana was the colony of British Guiana until independence in 1966, and many of its leading twentieth-century writers, among them Harris and Edgar Mittelholzer, did much of their work in Britain. Their fiction ranges from the coast to the forested interior, taking in the legacies of colonial rule.
Mittelholzer's Corentyne Thunder portrays Indo-Guyanese rice farmers on the Corentyne coast. Beryl Gilroy's Frangipani House shows an elderly woman placed in a care home by her family. Oonya Kempadoo's Buxton Spice is a girl's coming of age in a village in the 1970s, amid the country's socialist-era politics.
By writers from Guyana
“Find a copy” goes to Bookshop.org. If you buy, we earn a small commission and independent bookshops get a share too.
Palace of the Peacock
Wilson Harris
Novel, 1960
A visionary journey up a Guyanese river into the interior, drawing on the rainforest, Indigenous peoples and the colonial legacy.
Corentyne Thunder
Edgar Mittelholzer
Novel, 1941
Indo-Guyanese rice farmers on the Corentyne coast, shaped by family, land and the tropical climate.
From the Heat of the Day
Roy Heath
Novel, 1979
Middle-class Afro-Guyanese family life in Georgetown during the mid-twentieth century, showing the city's class and colour distinctions.
Frangipani House
Beryl Gilroy
Novel, 1986
An elderly woman in coastal Guyana is placed in a care home by her family, showing ageing, family duty and social change.
Black Midas
Jan Carew
Novel, 1958
A black Guyanese man works as a diamond and gold prospector in the interior, conveying the rainforest, river and the pursuit of fortune.
More from South America
Argentina Bolivia Brazil Chile Colombia Ecuador Paraguay Peru Suriname Uruguay Venezuela