Under the Calabash Tree

A Guyana Legacy Book, "Under the Calabash Tree," is a collection of short stories that capture events and experiences that span the 1960s to 2021. Guyanese folklore, history, lifestyles, and practices are woven together to create fictional scenarios that mirror the times. Set in Guyana at different historical places and times, this collection is a work of fiction built upon folklore, oral history, memories, news stories, the author's imagination, and life experiences.

"Under the Calabash Tree" is a collection of short stories that capture events and experiences that span the years between the 1960s and 2021. Guyanese folklore, history, lifestyles, and practices are woven together to create fictional scenarios that mirror the times. Places, faces, and times leave their mark on our memories like indelible footprints. These footprints can often become visible in the choices we make, the lives we live, and the heritage we pass on to future generations. This collection of short stories is a work of fiction built upon folklore, oral history, memories, news stories, the author's imagination, and life experiences in Guyana. The short stories written in this collection are of varying lengths. Some are very short stories, others are a little longer, while others are much longer. Some have a single plot, a single scene, and a single experience. Others are more complex with multiple characters and multiple scenes, while others have satirical implications. All these stories came from the heart, emerging as living tales that demanded to be written at the time of their conception.

Dr. Seeta Shah Roath is the writer of "Under the Calabash Tree: A Collection of Short Stories," The Demerara Series, and other fiction and non-fiction works. A Guyanese-born, lifelong learner, Dr. Seeta Shah Roath enjoys immersion in rural communities for photography, cultural participation, and making connections across boundaries of cultures, geography, and ethnicity. She produces journalistic and academic works, even as she produces performance poetry and multimedia scripting for radio, film, educational television, and stage productions. She is also a lecturer at the University of Guyana and the Guyana Institute of Creative Arts.