My Bones and My Flute by Edgar Mittelholzer

Mittelholzer’s tale is of a young man named Milton who goes into the interior of the Guyanese jungle, along with an upper-class couple, Mr. “My Bones and My Flute” might be one rare exception to this norm. The novel is a ghost story, and although Guyana has a wealth of supernatural tales and folklore, not enough literary work has been done in bringing forth these aspects of our culture into the mainstream. Most people often gravitate to “My Bones and My Flute” because the concept of the text has always been thrilling.

This unknowability is unfortunate and yet, ultimately, in the long run, it is a part of what leads more people to Mittelholzer’s works, as his literature is one of the only authentic ways in which any reader can really get to know this particular writer. There exists, also, in the fact that he lived and wrote so many years ago, the idea, the truth, that he literally created the Guyanese novel, an act so alien to modern comprehension that it only serves to cement his place in a time away from the modern, so far removed from the 21st Century that it is impossible for any of us to really know or study Mittelholzer in the way that we might know and study Carter or Harris, or Agard, Nichols, Melville, Dabydeen and Carew. Even today, reference to him is often made by the younger and upcoming batch of academics and readers who engage with “A Swarthy Boy,” “Corentyne Thunder,” “Shadows Move Among Them,” “Children of Kaywana,” or one of Mittelholzer’s other works and often need to recommend or highlight this author who was born over 100 years ago. Seymour, he is undoubtedly one of the most respected and most-read Guyanese novelists. Along with Sir Wilson Harris, Martin Carter, and A.J.

Mittelholzer’s life, goals, and talents live on in his written work. He had his first book published by Hogarth Press, founded by Virginia Woolf and Leonard Woolf, won a Guggenheim Fellowship, wrote several seminal works and then, tragically, in 1965, he committed suicide. Mittelholzer’s legacy as a Guyanese writer is unmatched, particularly with regard to his development from a young man growing up in Berbice in the early 1900s into one of the first professional writers of Caribbean descent, who was able to establish himself as a successful writer in Europe due to his talent, his determination, and the urgency with which he created his oeuvre of celebrated literary works, including over 20 novels. LIKE many people, “My Bones and My Flute” was the first work I read by the celebrated Guyanese writer, Edgar Mittelholzer.

My Bones and My Flute by Edgar Mittelholzer