Roy Heath was born and grew up in Georgetown in what was then British Guiana,[2] and "had African, Indian, European and Amerindian blood running through his veins".
"[3] As Mark McWatt notes: "Guyana is always the setting for his fiction, and its capital and rural villages are evoked in the kind of powerful and minute detail that would seem to require the author's frequent visits.
"[9] Taken on by A&B, with Margaret Busby as editor, Heath's next novel, published in 1978, was The Murderer, which that same year won the Guardian Fiction Prize and was described by The Observer as "mysteriously authentic, and unique as a work of art".
His novels "capture the anxieties of modernity in the face of crippling economic forces and explore the burdens of the past defined by slavery, indentured labor, and Amerindian disenfranchisement.
"[13] Heath's writings have been widely acclaimed and he has been called "truly one of the most brilliant story tellers ever",[14] with reviewers at different times comparing his work to that of such great writers as D. H. Lawrence, R. K. Narayan, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Graham Greene, Joseph Conrad, V. S. Naipaul and others.
[1][15][16] Described by Salman Rushdie as "a beautiful writer" and by Edward Blishen as "simply one of the most astonishingly good novelists of our time", Heath might have been better known outside literary circles had he not eschewed personal publicity, believing that his work should speak for itself.
[17][18] Winner of the Guardian Fiction Prize in 1978, The Murderer was well reviewed on first publication and later reissues, being described by The Observer as "mysteriously authentic, and unique as a work of art" and by Publishers Weekly as "an impressive study of a man's descent into paranoia and madness.
[21][22] "A spare, bleak saga of two generations in the life of a Guyanese family struggling for respectability but unable to snatch any but the most fleeting moments of happiness.
(Mark Childress, The New York Times)[26] "...this novel perhaps owes as much to Wilson Harris as to Mittelholzer, contrasting as it does the communal, spiritual and moral values of traditional Amerindian life" (Stewart Brown, Kyk-over-Al)[27] "Heath's novels are so imbued with local sights, sounds, smells, speech and unique features of the landscape that they offer rare and penetrating insight into the history and culture of twentieth century Guyana."
(Frank Birbalsingh, Indo-Caribbean World)[28] "The Guyanese-born Heath ... surpasses himself with this ambitious, vividly written, psychologically rich chronicle—set in his own colorfully multiracial native country—of compromised ambition and family conflict.
... Heath's brilliant novel—also distinguished for its flexible and lyrical prose, expert handling of its several native populations, varieties of pidgin English, and memorable use of figurative language—was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.
(Kirkus Reviews)[29] "Heath's modest, unpretentious style undergirds a powerful realism as his subtle analysis of family conflicts builds to a tragic and moving climax."
(Kirkus Reviews)[30] "With a fine ear for comic dialogue and an eye for the ironies of clashing personalities ... Heath ably steers his charming ship of fools and knaves through a sea of picaresque corruption to a generous-hearted conclusion."