While working as a librarian for Hammersmith and Fulham, in west London, I met Sir Wilson Harris when we organised an event to celebrate his 70th birthday. There was a collective raising of eyebrows by a few of my colleagues, who either had not heard of him, or thought him something of a marginal figure in “black literature”.
The ambivalence towards him may have been due partly to the perceived difficulty of his language and style, and to the fact that he seemed different from the Caribbean writers who were then being promoted in public libraries.
Nonetheless, the event was well attended, and Harris seemed pleased to have his work recognised and promoted. What I appreciated in it was, as the obituary noted, his breadth of vision and avoidance of the trap of victimhood.
