Jan Shinebourne (Janice Shinebourne) Biography

Guyanese novelist, born in British Guiana (now Guyana) and educated there; she later became resident in London. Her first novel, Timepiece (1986), focuses on Sandra Yansen, a young woman who leaves her village to work as a reporter in Georgetown. Her experiences reflect the position of women and racial conflict in Guyanese society. The Last English Plantation (1988) charts similar territory, but also explores political turbulence in British Guiana in the 1950s. Wilson Harris commended the work for psychologically exploring ‘the inner landscape of a colonial age’.