The visionary masterpiece, tracing a riverboat crew`s dreamlike jungle voyage...”An exhilarating experience ... Makes visions real and reality visions ... Genius.” Jamaica Kincaid”A masterpiece: I love this book for its language, adventure and wisdoms.” Monique Roffey”Revel in the inviolate, ever-deepening mystery of Wilson Harris`s work.” Jeet Thayil”The Guyanese William Blake . Such poetic intensity.” Angela CarterI dreamt I awoke with one dead seeing eye and one living closed eye ...A crew of men are embarking on a voyage up a turbulent river through the rainforests of Guyana. Their domineering leader, Donne, is the spirit of a conquistador, obsessed with hunting for a mysterious woman and exploiting indigenous people as plantation labour. But their expedition is plagued by tragedies, haunted by drowned ghosts: spectres of the crew themselves, inhabiting a blurred shadowland between life and death. As their journey into the interior - their own hearts of darkness - deepens, it assumes a spiritual dimension, guiding them towards a new destination: the Palace of the Peacock ... A modernist fever dream; prose poem; modern myth; elegy to victims of colonial conquest: Wilson Harris` masterpiece has defied definition for over sixty years, and is reissued for a new generation of readers.