J W Chinapen

Book excerpt: They came in the hundreds and thousands over many years to supply labor for the sugar estates of then British Guiana, now named Guyana. They came from the north and south, the east and west, and central India. They all came as indentured laborers, and among them were the parents of Velyadum Chinapen, the father of Jacob Wellien Chinapen J.W. Chinapen was an innovative and pioneering poet, headmaster, artist, and community activist whose poetry is still taught in certain schools in Guyana. He had a great influence over many young minds, a fact that his son, Karma, discovers when he is persuaded to write his father's biography after being contacted by one of his father's former students; a young man who, thanks to J.W., was motivated to get a PhD in English and Literature. Over the course of his research, Karma discovers the depths of the man he called father and is inspired by the task he once reluctantly undertook.