Roy A.K. Heath (1926-2008) was born in British Guiana (now Guyana). He fled a stultifying colony in 1950 and headed to the United Kingdom where he became a teacher by profession, a lawyer by training, and a writer by conscience. Heath authored nine novels (the first published in 1974), all uncompromisingly grounded in the landscape and the sociopolitical and cultural reality of twentieth-century Guyana. Coming after a long line of perceptive Guyanese and regional writers, Heath has practically refined the Guyanese and regional novel. With their psychological realism, his novels transcend politics and reach for man's essential condition of existence. This is the first critical study on Heath's entire body of work.
Ameena Gafoor's comprehensive critical introduction to Heath's works will be essential reading in institutions where literatures in English are being studied and researched.