SOURCE: Sander, Reinhard W. “The Quest for Form: Wilson Harris' Contributions to Kyk-over-al.” World Literature Written in English 22, no. 1 (spring 1983): 17–27.

In the following essay, Sander assesses Harris's early development as a writer by focusing on his contributions to the journal Kyk-over-al between 1945 and 1960.

Form and content are then inseparable. In fact everything is Form—the mystery is Form. 

—Wilson Harris, 1955¹

The literary magazine Kyk-over-al was edited and published by A. J. Seymour from 1945 to 1961. It appeared half-yearly and contained short fiction, plays, poetry, critical articles, and reviews that originated in Guyana and the West Indies. Its emphasis, however, was clearly on poetry and the theoretical debate about the quality and direction of a distinctive West Indian literature.² Wilson Harris contributed numerous poems and articles to the pages of Kyk-over-al, as well as several pieces of short fiction. His contributions appeared fairly regularly in the magazine, from the very...