The Chrysalids is a special novel for me because it was one of the first older novels (although in those days, all the students considered anything published before Harry Potter as old) that myself and the other students in my Literature (English B) class studied and actually enjoyed.

Many of us had a hard time coming to terms with and, therefore, sometimes not entirely managing to enjoy the older, somewhat denser prose of works that emerged from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that we were studying in the second and third forms, such as The Call of the Wild and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Then along came The Chrysalids (first published in 1955) to prove to us students that older books could be “cool”, resplendent with all the magic (in the form of science), the heroes (as represented by the protagonist, David), the complex relationships (as seen in the one David has with his deeply religious father) and the terrifying villains (like the “spider-man” character) that we came to associate with and love in the contemporary literature we enjoyed reading at the time. Perhaps it was our first lesson in the truth that many of the literary features we appreciated in the literature of our time as high school students had actually been in existence for many, many years (sometimes centuries) before we first encountered them.
The Chrysalids, for example, presents the reader with that literary feature of a world that seems brand new but, in reality, is actually more than similar to the world we know. In fact, the world in the novel is actually a post-apocalyptic version of our own earth – where a nuclear disaster has resulted in a depletion of the population, a loss of communication, the rise of physical and mental abnormalities in all species still surviving (including humans) and the escalation of a religious zeal that strives for purity by destroying or banishing (to a wasteland called the Fringes) anyone or anything that is perceived as abnormal or not pure.
After we have been introduced to the world, Wyndham then gives us his excellent conflict. David, our protagonist and hero, is the son of Joseph, a strict Christian fundamentalist who is adamant that all people bearing mutations (even the slightest kind, such as having an extra toe) must be sterilized and banished to the Fringes to keep the human race pure. The irony involved in the conflict is the fact that David himself is a mutant since he possesses telepathic abilities which enables him to communicate with several other telepaths who, like David, must keep their mutant abilities secret. Petra, David’s younger sister, is one of the strongest telepaths and is able to make contact with a society that encourages and appreciates deviations and mutant abilities. Together, the telepaths band together and plot their escape, attempting to journey to the land where they will not be condemned.
The book deals with big themes like religious fundamentalism, genetic mutations, and morality – but it is the recurring motif of othering (the discrimination, destruction and disdain for anyone who stands against what the majority perceives as “normal”) that would be most interesting to Guyanese readers, particularly with our history of tensions between races and the way in which some of our religious groups continue to promote segregation and discrimination against people from smaller factions like the country’s LGBT community.