Zechariah Stevenson, son of a wealthy businessman, is the watchman at a timber grant deep in the Guyanese interior. In flight from the scandal of a fraud and the connected disappearance of his mistress, Stevenson isolates himself in the forest, which he discovers is disturbingly alive and conscious.

In this vulnerable state old certainties crumble. But he is guided by three ghostly revenants from Harris's previous novels: Kaiser who has become the storekeeper of the heartland; Petra a pregnant Amerindian woman and Da Silva, the pork-knocker, whose second death points Stevenson in the direction of a journey that crosses the boundaries between life and death.

Harris, who was for many years a surveyor in the Guyanese hinterland, creates a powerfully physical sense of the complex relationship between the human and the natural worlds.

Unquestionably one of the Caribbean's most original and visionary writers, Wilson Harris has published an extensive body of fiction, poetry and criticism. He was born in Guyana and has been resident in the UK since 1959.

This new edition is introduced by Michael Mitchell.