N.D.Williams' Books

New author Ryhaan Shah lives in Guyana and is President of the Guyana Indian Heritage Association. If you visit her website and scroll through the postings you come away with the impression her world-view is comprised of hostile and irreconcilable dualities. In a country where six ethnic groups jostle each other in search of reliable services, narcoactive-free habitats and a national identity, Shah sees two overlapping cultural "worlds", which emerged after colonial and postcolonial practices left one gaping crack in the nation's crust.
 
In world #1 you'll encounter disturbing behaviors and attitudes. A short list of these would include street obscenities & vulgarities, "bad manners and indiscipline"; people who on festive occasions "jump & wine", people who at cultural events "wine down and mash up the place"; who indulge in "drunkenness and sexual gyrations", wear "skimpy clothes" and get on bad to chutney & kaiso music.

Marina Budhos, daughter of a Guyanese Indian and a New York Jewish woman, was born and raised in Queens, NY. Her first novel, House of Waiting (1995), examined what happens when two characters from different cultures meet, marry then find their union threatened by problems unforeseen, hidden or outside their control. The central characters in the novel are a Guianese Indian and a New York Jewish woman.

Publishers still tumble head over heels for a book like this, and there’s no shortage of academics ready to extrapolate on the human dilemma of being caught in the middle, as it were. For there’s the perception that a mixed-race, or a mixed-cultured, person may have more important and interesting things to say about ‘what it feels like’ to be neither/nor in situations of cultural hybridity. Stranded between cultures, as it were. Taking it both sides.