Winner of the Burt Award for Caribbean Literature, one of the region’s foremost literary prizes for writers of young adult and children’s literature, Children of the Spider is a novel by Guyanese writer, Imam Baksh.

The story is about a girl named Mayali who comes to Guyana from the land of Zolpash – a place of sulphur, spider gods and slavery – in search of her missing father. On her journey, she comes across a variety of characters, including: Joseph, a tech-savvy, deaf/mute Amerindian boy and his girlfriend, Tara, and Rafeek, a street urchin who lives in the slums of Georgetown. Together, these characters, along with various helpers, try to inform the Guyanese people of the spiders and the mechanics of everything that is going on in Zolpash, including the fact that Guyanese people are often caught and transported there, where they are forced to work for the spiders.
The premise is quite an intriguing one – rich with the potential for forays into many tropes of children’s fantasy, including the creation of a “new world” with Zolpash. Interestingly, Baksh chooses to bypass the opportunity to delve into the land inhabited by the spiders and sets most of the tale in Guyana – not that this is a bad thing. In fact, the novel being set in Guyana is one of the things that is sure to draw the young Guyanese and Caribbean reader to the book. Indeed, writers like Baksh should be commended for not giving in to what must probably be a universal impulse for writers to “write what we have read” (works on American and European societies) and choosing instead to “write what we know” (Guyana and Guyanese society).
The way the novel shifts location – from Mabaruma to Georgetown to Kaietur Falls, and back to Georgetown – can be a bit abrupt, but journeys do involve a lot of travelling, and the various locations offers the writer room to present varying aspects of the country’s environment and culture. Baksh’s attempt at Creole is also praiseworthy, as it emphasizes the West Indian nature of the work and helps to bring us closer to the characters, who speak like us and, therefore, are instantly more relatable. As befitting a novel meant for children, the work contains genuinely funny moments that offer us temporary reprieves from the seriousness of the heroine’s quest to, as we say, “save the world”, and there are also other well-written moments that convey deep sorrow and pain, as seen especially in the character of Rafeek.
Also intriguing is the author’s use of myth. In a manner reminiscent of Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series, Baksh uses traditional mythical entities and gives them new forms and identities that become a part of his contemporary tale. For example, our very own Anansi is transformed and presented as a cunning and humorous character that pays homage to the original spider god from our folktales.
Sometimes the villains’ dialogue is awkward, and towards the climax all the action does feel a tad bit confusing, and although the heroes do confront the villains on their own eventually, one does wish the lead characters did not have to rely so much on the adults who often come to their aid earlier on in the narrative. However, apart from those little things, the book is a very admirable one that Guyanese children should read. It is slated for official release on July 15, 2016 and, as a Guyanese novel, will be available at various bookstores across the country.