In November 2010 the Guyana Prize for Literature announced that it was opening a new page in its literary activities to strengthen its developmental partnership with Caribbean literature. It has always been the intention of the Prize to provide encouragement for the development of good creative writing in both Guyana and the Caribbean. The new Guyana Prize for Literature Caribbean Award was established to serve that purpose more directly than has been the case so far with the award of Prizes to Guyanese authors. The Caribbean Award has also decided to select a West Indian writer most deserving to be honoured for an overall or lifetime achievement in regional literature. This is in addition to the regular Prizes in Fiction, Poetry and Drama, and is the first of its kind in the Caribbean.
The inaugural presentation of this Recognition for Achievement in West Indian Literature is to be made to Sir Theodore Wilson Harris, Guyanese novelist, literary critic and theorist. This recognition is for the achievement of excellence as a writer, and Harris qualifies on that count. But he also has the distinction of having made a sustained and outstanding contribution to the literature through his interventions in criticism, theory and thought.
To add to this, and to provide a series of events to focus Sir Wilson, there was also a Wilson Harris Lecture presented on
