Suspended Sentences

In this tour-de-force of invention, by ranging across Guyanese ethnicities, gender and time in the purported authorship of these stories, Mark McWatt creates a richly dialogic work of fiction. Back in 1966, each of a group of Guyanese sixth-formers is 'sentenced' to write a short story that reflects their newly independent country. Years later, Mark McWatt, one of the group, is handed the papers of his old school friend, Victor Nunes, who has disappeared, feared drowned, in the interior. The papers contain some of the stories written before the project collapsed. As a tribute to Victor, McWatt decides to collect the rest of the stories from his friends.