Only when he is on board the steamer halfway to their remote destination up river in Guyana does Milton Woodsley realize that there is more to Henry Nevinson s invitation to spend time with his family in their jungle cottage. Milton, an artist, thinks he has been invited to do some paintings for Nevinson, a rich businessman. But when the Nevinsons mention a flute player that no one else can hear, Woodsley begins to glean that there is more to their stay. Told in Woodsley s skeptical, self-mocking and good-humored voice, Mittelholzer creates a brilliantly atmospheric setting for his characters and their terrified discovery that this is not a place where they can be at home."

Telling the tragic story of a young Sylvia Ann Russell, this novel focuses on the dilemmas of a young woman of mixed race in 1930s Guyana. After the death of her English father, Sylvia constantly struggles for economic survival and against attempts to exploit her sexually. Impossibly torn between her desire for emotional closeness and the integrity of her independence, Sylvia willfully accepts her dark fate when she falls ill. This brilliant and moving novel explores the plight of a Caribbean woman who demands more meaning from her life than her society will give her.

Portraying the dark, authoritarian side of the utopian dream, this classic novel tells the story of the Reverend Harmston, a man devoted to building a microsociety in which there is a balance between the order that is necessary to produce livelihood and the freedom to fully explore sexuality. Setting up a commune in the remote Guyanese forest with the creed, "Hard work, frank love, and wholesome play," the reverend attempts to construct an ideal society that opens up cross-cultural dialogue between the spirit of European enlightenment and the culture of the native Amerindians. Underneath its generally comic tone, however, there are notes of a darker spirit at play--such as Harmston's unquestioned authority and the brutal punishments he hands out--that eerily foreshadow the actual 1978 Jonestown Massacre, a violent event that occurred 27 years after the novel's initial publication.

Exploring the complicated landscape of human interaction within the walls of the offices of Essential Products Ltd., this serious yet comedic novel offers a glimpse into 1940s Trinidad. Against the backdrop of the often hierarchical and always complex office space, characters negotiate issues of sexual attraction and repulsion, their attitude to colonial rule, racial tensions, and the changing labor market of contemporary society. Filled with rich characters and an acute but sympathetic portrayal of a microcosm of middle- and lower-middle-class Trinidad, this satire turns a careful eye to the disparities between the world of the office and wider society.

First published in 1941, this vivid and poetic family saga was the first modern novel to focus on the lives of immigrants from India in the British Caribbean colonies. Set on the coast of British Guiana, the story spans three generations and revolves around Ramgollal, an old Indian cow-minder on the Corentyne coast who has worked hard for many years to save money and build his herd of cows. He is proud of his children from two marriages, particularly the daughter of his first marriage, who is married to a well-to-do white planter. Their son Geoffry is light-skinned, ambitious, and poised to make a success of his life, and Ramgollal takes much satisfaction in his grandson's accomplishments. When Geoffry seduces and impregnates Kattree, his mother's half sister, however, Ramgollal's world begins to fall apart. Soon thereafter, Kattree's sister Beena gets involved with a married man who is subsequently arrested on a murder charge, and Ramgollal despairs over his losses. Despite his struggles to respect tradition and provide for the future, these sordid scandals threaten both Ramgollal's savings and his family's good name.