Wilson Harris returns to life in Trinidad & Tobago's Carnival
Magnificent!
The great poet and novelist Wilson Harris died exactly one year ago. Or did he? Like one of his characters, Harris has come back. He has returned in the form of a band of moko jumbies a motley crew of painted spirits striding high above us on wooden stilts, roaming the concrete jungle of Port of Spain, haunting Trinidads Carnival.
This is Palace of the Peacock, a mas[querade] by Alan Vaughans Moko Sõmõkow band, based on Harris dense, beautiful and wildly ambitious novel of the same name.
Watching the moko jumbies leave their mas camp at Erthig Road, Belmont, the mood of Harris novel is palpable. Just as the books band of crusaders embark on an epic quest, these masqueraders set out for the wide green expanse of parkland at the centre of the city, the Queens Park Savannah.
Why a novel? Why bring a mas based on a book? And a book by an author with a style as dense as Wilson Harris?
This is Palace of the Peacock, a mas[querade] by Alan Vaughans Moko Sõmõkow band, based on Harris dense, beautiful and wildly ambitious novel of the same name.
Watching the moko jumbies leave their mas camp at Erthig Road, Belmont, the mood of Harris novel is palpable. Just as the books band of crusaders embark on an epic quest, these masqueraders set out for the wide green expanse of parkland at the centre of the city, the Queens Park Savannah.
Why a novel? Why bring a mas based on a book? And a book by an author with a style as dense as Wilson Harris?