After residing uneasily in Canada for over twenty years, Deo returns to Guyana, having dreampt always of coming home, but finds there a disconcerting homelessness where every item of his memory has been violated. His mother is dying. He is a stranger to everyone else. There is emptiness where his father once lived. Dismay and sorrow and terror are etched in the lives of everyone around. It is within this that Deo struggles to make sense of himself, and the things which have fallen apart around him, the memory of his past clashing against a tortured present and questionable future.

Home and Back is a powerful and merciless indictment of modern, postcolonial West Indies. At the same time Itwaru brings us a touching lyrical meditation on growth and loss, the departure from home and life lived between remembering and forgetting in an alien elsewhere. With artistic maturity and insight, Itwaru offers a visceral understanding of community and pays homage to the struggles for integrity and dignity within the vicissitutes of harsh reality.

?twaru often reads like a Gordimer, Soyinka or Achebe in his dedicated pursuit of the truth . . . and mincing not a single word, he leaves us wordless . . .??unday Observer (India)

? . . powerful, involving reading . . .??ooks in Canada

Arnold Harrichand Itwaru's profile page

Arnold Harrichand Itwaru is the author of the modern classic Shanti and eleven other books. He was born in Guyana and resides in Toronto. A visual artist as well, he writes compellingly on a wide range of subjects. In Guyana he received two natonal awards for his poetry. He is currently a lecturer at the University of Toronto. Home and Back is his thirteenth book and fourth book of fiction.

“twaru often reads like a Gordimer, Soyinka or Achebe in his dedicated pursuit of the truth . . . and mincing not a single word, he leaves us wordless . . .??unday Observer (India)? . . powerful, involving reading . . .??ooks in Canada