Born in Guyana, Williams went to Jamaica as a student to study at University of the West Indies at Mona in 1968.
Williams writes of being powerfully influenced by the radical, nativist currents in Jamaican culture – reggae and yard theatre – of this period.
[1] In 1976 his first novel Ikael Torass was awarded the prestigious Casa de las Americas prize.
His works, from the short stories of The Crying of Rainbirds (1992), the novel, The Silence of Islands (1994), the two novellas My Planet of Ras and What Happening There, Prash in Prash and Ras (1997), to the short stories in Julie Mango (2003), all published by Peepal Tree Press, explore both an island and a diasporic experience.
[3] In 2002 Williams published his searching look at the teeming underclass of New York in his disturbing novel Ah, Mikhail, O Fidel.