The Enemy Within
by Petamber Persaud
(Extract of interview with Oliver Hinckson, December 24, 2007, Georgetown, Guyana.
Hinckson won the Casa de las Americas Literary Prize in 1978 for his first novel Enemy Within. It was reported in the local press that Hinckson passed away recently.)
PP: You are now part of a group of significant Guyanese writers who have won the Casa de las America Literary Prize; writers like John Agard, N. D. Williams, Fred D’Aguiar and recently Mark McWatt. How does it feel to be part of that distinguished body of writers?
OH: You mentioned some dignified names. I was always impressed with Mc Watt and his writing. But when I got a letter three months after winning the prize from Jan Carew and he was fulsome in praise; to my mind I couldn’t ask for greater glorification. Jan Carew is the doyen of literature after C. L. R. James whom I consider the greatest Caribbean writer ever, but it is an honour to be amongst these guys – it has taken a long time. In fact, Carew’s letter has encouraged me to keep on writing but I got caught up in business. However, I still managed to finish three books.
PP: By what means were you informed of winning the prize?
OH: In actuality I was on the run from the … government [of the day]; I’m not casting any aspersions on the [……Government] or whatever but that’s how it was – I was on the run. Having come out of the army from the Intelligence Corps, some people might have been paranoid; they felt that a few other ex-officers and I might be a threat. So I had some serious problems with them and I had to evade/take evasive action so to speak. During my sojourn, if you could call it that, the runners from the Cuban Embassy came with a telegram written in Spanish and gave it to my mother who got it to me very quickly. Through my basic knowledge of Portuguese, I was able then to interpret…. especially the word, ‘premio’ which means prize.
PP: What was the feeling then – you said you were on the run, your thriller/espionage book a prize winner…on the run and you got this wonderful news, what did you make of the moment?
OH: That is the best and most profound I had heard in the longest while. As a matter of fact, that was what convinced me to give myself up in 1978. I was on the run for two years, and I decided based on what Jan Carew had told me – that is…. he sees some future in this whole thing; it means I have potential as a writer, it was convincing enough. So I said let me get this matter off my back.
The moment was euphoric of course. But it is nice to win anything; I am telling you even if you go to the fair and win a bottle of rum, it feels good.
PP: Since the book, Enemy Within, won the prize, almost thirty years [ago]…. What are the factors responsible for bringing this book to publication a whole generation later, and I am stressing this particular length of time?
OH: Well, let me do this in reverse. The fact that it has come out after thirty years does have some nuances in a scenario that kept this book suppressed so long. The Cubans did write and say they would publish this book but then they were some political implications and they said I have written a book and submitted under my son’s name which is Kacey and they used that as a reason or pretext to say they can’t publish the book.
I then submitted to Longmans Publishers of England and they did write me a letter saying that they were impressed with it – they particularly mentioned that the characters breathed a sense of life and so on, and that the book was full of description. They did write and say they would publish it.
Two weeks after that, again, I got a letter saying they couldn’t do it. They did not specify any reason. I clearly remember Longmans saying that; it was a personal interview, I went up to England in 1981 and the editor told me personally she was going to publish it in the African and Pacific and Caribbean Series first and then go worldwide. I was crushed when I came back down to Guyana and got this notification saying everything is off.
PP: You said you were crushed. Do you think there was something in the book… let me extend this question and rephrase it? This is a first book and many first novels tend to be autobiographical; could it be that that is what caused the publishing houses to shy away from publishing it?
OH: No doubt you have read the book and many others have read the book which was issued in America over the Labour Day weekend but there is nothing political in the book. As a matter of fact that formula is factual, it was discovered by laboratory analysts at the Linden mine and I read that article in the newspaper and I said, wow, at a time like this when Guyana needed a boost with its economy, this is 1978, the IDB was turning the screws on …. Government [of the day] and we were suffering the impact of the hike in oil prices, nothing there political. A lot of the intrigue in the book is based on the fact that I worked in the intelligence service. And you know every writer is influenced by some previous writer.
PP: And whom were you influenced by?
OH: Alistair McLean was my favourite writer; in fact he had a strong influence on me particularly because I wanted to move away from the Caribbean style of writing where you harp on the nigger yard and the stand pipe and so on. You hardly have Caribbean writers doing spy thrillers.
PP: Not many names to mention here but Guyanese Christopher Nicole is one such writer with an amazing output – over eighty novels! Michelle Fitzpatrick – two slim volumes, Godfrey Wray – one down and one on its way. So Enemy Within would be a pioneering effort in a genre of writing still to be fully explored by our writers. Where do see yourself, where do you see this book, this type of writing going in the near future?
OH: Well, you know, we tend to judge whenever it’s a sportsman, an athlete, or whatever by past performance. Everyone who has read the book so far including the esteemed Jan Carew and the prolix praises heaped on the book gave me a lot of hope that I can pull it off. I also have evidence from Penguin Books where they said there were many good points in the book especially the live characterisations and the pacing of the work.
I did marketing at UG, my daughter has an MBA and the two of us have put together a marketing strategy on how to get it on the shelves of the big houses abroad especially Random House.
PP: Which is an excellent move on your part – marketing. Which is what is needed by local writers apart from a few other things like good editorial advice and writers workshops. This cannot be overemphasised, marketing, marketing, marketing – we need to market ourselves as writers and our product also. So I am delighted with this move by you and your daughter to market the book and hope emerging writers take note.
Let’s look at the novel of mystery and intrigue. For me it was smooth, too smooth, very slick….
OH: Too slick? First of all, as I said before, this book was written while I was on the run and it was written in six weeks. Now it was almost twice this size and Longman Publishers of England said it was too long to be a thriller. So immediately I learnt something that thrillers should not be too long. And when you look at the size of Earl Stanley Gardner, James Hadley Chase and Alistair McLean – they are basically 140 pages or so; quick, fast, nasty and over with.
In terms of the book being too slick it is because you were convinced by the characters.
PP: And numerous descriptions of local scenery which slowed down the action but also added to the intrigue.
Now which is the real title: Enemy Within on the cover or The Enemy Within on the title page?
OH: Enemy Within…the first time I heard this phrase was in a speech by John F. Kennedy….
PP: I asked this because ‘the’ is a definite article, pointing your finger to a particular object/subject. Now with Enemy Within as Godfrey Wray mentioned, points to many things. Were you writing as the conscience of the nation?
OH: That question speaks a lot…can be quite revealing. If you are on the run during the […. government] of the day, everybody, everybody fancies himself to be a KGB agent and everybody is out to get you. There were massive posters of me all over the country, police stations, ferry stellings etc. It was a new phenomenon in this country, and in my sight, to be singled out in this era when the maximum leader had everybody under his control; you know he was a populist leader, very charismatic and everybody seemed to want to please him. He was also paranoid about army men and at the time there were many coups in Africa, leaders who had visited this country were overthrown. Then there was the Rodney phenomenon and the WPA giving the government blows left, right and centre; massive rallies, great support from every quarter…take all of that into account, there was an enemy in every hole.
PP: This book, Enemy Within surfacing some thirty years ago shows what could happen in a Guyana that is somewhat laidback, complacent, where everything in the society seem nice and rosy, at least on the surface, where things are brewing below the surface that the masses may not be privy to….
OH: Professor Lear Matthews who is at New York University wrote a little critique on the book and those were his exact sentiments. He saw it from that perspective that here it was in a society… as you said, laidback, the enemy was outside there willing to do whatever it took to usurp the sovereignty of this state and the economic potential of this state – those were his exact sentiments.
PP: I noticed with many first books, like many first achievements, you have dedicated this book to your mother – ‘All that I am I owe to her. Everything I have I owe to her’. Of course, I’d like you to expand on the impact your mother has on your life and writing.
OH: Any man, any child, any boy will tell you his mom is the greatest person on the face of the earth. And I honestly feel this having passed through so many unsavoury experiences with people. We grew up in a one-parent family, I was the last child. One incident my mother use to recall was her hurrying with me down to St. Mary’s School to write the government county scholarship, in those days there were only 15 scholarships offered to the whole country. So there were thousands of 10-year olds and 11-year olds hoping to make the mark to QC, Saints, Rose’s or Bishops. At that time you had Sacred Heart in Main Street and St Mary’s with Mr. Arokium and Mr. Walcott respectively, those two gentlemen were the greatest teachers arguably in the history of this country…. nobody can refute that. And every year they produced the county scholarship winners and I was fortunate to be one of the fifteen. And having been a Catholic all the days of my life, having attended Sacred Heart and having been an altar boy and choir boy, Saints follows and I have no regrets, it taught me how to mix and mingle
PP: The Jesuits [are] celebrating 150 of service in Guyana
OH: Fantastic Jesuits, all of them with a Masters degree …so it was like going to a mini-university and unto this day I honour and adore Fr. Scanell because with my second term I was granted another scholarship, a Wm. Fogarty’s Scholarship, so I went through there [Saints] on two scholarships having been a very poor boy, you know and the Jesuits made life easy for me; I love them, that’s all I can say. And I love my mother and cherish those memories.
PP: Now to the future; I like the name of one of the two titles you’d be publishing in 2008: Cry Havoc
OH: And Let slip the dogs of War
PP: What is Cry Havoc made of?
OH: Cry Havoc encapsulates all that has happened from 2002 to 2007 in Guyana especially after the jail break and the massacre that followed… the political overtone… it’s action packed, it’s over 400 pages. I have the emery cloth and the sandpaper out polishing it up.
PP: In this season of good will and with Janus coming, I am looking forward to see how you deal with that period of our history, still awfully fresh in our minds.
Responses to this author telephone (592) 226-0065 or email: oraltradition2002@yahoo.com (Guyana Times Sunday Magazine)
