Rooplall Monar

Rooplall Motiall Monar (born in 1945) is a poet and writer of Guyanese ancestry. He has worked as a teacher, accounts clerk, freelance journalist, broadcaster and practitioner of herbal cures.

Early life

Rooplall Motilal Monar was born on the Lusignan sugar estate, East Coast Demerara, Guyana, in 1945. His parents were both caneworkers. The family moved to Annandale in 1953. This, much extended over the years, remains Monar's home. He attended Lusignan Government school, Buxton Congregational School, Hindu College and Annandale Evening College.

Writing career

He began writing in the mid-1960s and came to notice in 1967 with a prize-winning poem, "The Creole Gang". His first published collection, "Meanings" (1972) begins his exploration of the consciousness of the Indo-Guyanese "divided by horizon's edges, yet/ telling of no other worlds/ but mine". His second collection, "Patterns" (1983) continued the creative but painful potential of this limbo consciousness.

Monar also began to write short stories, encouraged by the folklorist and poet Wordsworth McAndrew, pushing the use of an Indo-Guyanese inflected Creole to a depth not seen before. These stories began to be broadcast on Guyanese radio around 1976, though it was almost another ten years before they saw publication as the classic "Backdam People", first published in 1985.

In the 1970s, Monar was part of the Messenger group, which included Rajkumari Singh, Guska Kissoon and Beatrice Muniyan, and part of an Annandale group of poets which included Bramdeo Persaud, George Vidyahanand and Randall Butisingh.

Peepal Tree Press issued a collection of Monar's poems, "Koker" in 1987, followed by his novel, "Janjhat" (1989) which explores the tempestuous first year of a marriage under the interfering pressure of the boy's mother. The move from sugar estate to village life is explored in the short stories of "High House and Radio" which sees the backdam people leave their logies for their new high houses and the coherent Indianness of the estate challenged by the new visions brought by the radio, politicians and the pursuit of more individual lives.

Since then Monar has written two works of popular fiction, "Ramsingh Street" and "Tormented Wives" (1999).

Critical acclaim and awards

In 1987, he was awarded a special Judges' Prize for his contribution to Guyanese writing.