Consumption of Bias and Repetition in Palace of the Peacock

Wilson Harris has created in his novel Palace of the Peacock a space of intellectual transformation that differs radically from everything that preceded it. In this work, I focus on the narrative matrix of Palace, which enables the genesis of an evolving Guyanese identity. This identity derives neither from pre-colonial vestiges nor from the narratives of traditional historiography. In order to shape this dynamic identity, Wilson Harris uses philosophical as well as literary ingredients whose transformative power affects the way our imagination is structured. He uses repetition as a narrative strategy whose subversive force puts in question among other familiar narrative frames, the linear flow of time destroying in the process not only ingrained reading habits but most importantly oppressive, conventional mental frameworks. This work is also an exploration of how the voice of Wilson Harris meets other voices from other continents and other backgrounds that all call for an unconditional hospitality towards the Other in and outside of oneself. Keywords: postcolonialism, repetition, hauntology, archive, virtual archive, archon, imagination, archive-fever, spectrology.