SOURCE: Harris, Wilson, and Michael Fabre. “Interview with Wilson Harris.” World Literature Written in English 22, no. 1 (spring 1983): 2–17.

In the following interview, Harris discusses the setting, characters, and themes of The Secret Ladder, the evolution of his artistic vision, and his concept of the novel genre.

[Fabre:] How would you introduce The Secret Ladder to the general reader? How should one begin to approach the novel?

[Harris:] It might be useful to start with saying something on the landscape of the Canje. There is a passage which tells you a little about it:

The Canje was one of the lowest rungs in the ladder of ascending purgatorial rivers, the blackest river one could imagine. Every tributary had buried its grassy head in a grave of wilderness, green as diabolic flame, with a high waving colour of fresh seeming youth belonging nevertheless to the darkest fluid of the river's age...