Journalist to produce movie from bestseller novel ‘Kamarang’

Since its first edition was published in 2017, Kamarang written by famed Guyanese Writer and Journalist Michael Jordan, has sold many copies earning the label Guyana’s number 1 bestseller.

Four years on, Jordan is looking to transfer his remarkable story on Guyana’s myths and folklore into a movie.

“It must be a high-quality movie and I think it will do well as a movie,” Jordan said of his novel named after a village in Region Seven.

Kamarang was set in the 1960s and started off in Guyana’s interior before taking its reader on a trip to the capital city of Georgetown in search of a mysterious woman who has bewitched many.

The book which has recently gained popularity, took 25 years of writing and research along with four drafts before it was completed.

“I started writing on a typewriter. Back then no computers. Then we started to get computers and on Sundays –I was on the Chronicle then –I would go into the Chronicle when nobody is working and I would write. Walk with my lunch and everything. I would then type it back what I wrote on the computer, using my old typewriter. The reason for that was because I had no printer,” the iconic writer recalled.

Despite being a journalist in a profession built on facts, Jordan said he had no difficulty transferring to fiction as this came naturally from his younger years.

“Being among five siblings, we will invent characters. We had a guy who lived in a light bulb for instance but we make up things. We were very creative,” he noted.

The story is introduced with a young pork-knocker at a night spot in Kamarang who became smitten by a beautiful girl who entered the bar. Upon noticing the young man, the woman named ‘Lucille’ ignored all of the other men at the establishment and chose the pork-knocker with whom she shared a relationship.

However, it was not long after their meeting that strange things started happening in the area.

“Strange things started to happen in Kamarang, some strange deaths, a child found dead in the forest, strange dreams…and then the young man is found dead in the woman’s bedroom and she has vanished,” Jordan said as he described the novel.

One man later decided to track ‘Lucille’ who the writer said was inspired by a long-time lover of Jordan whom he described as “very intriguing, astonishingly beautiful and mysterious.”

She was found in Georgetown where it was uncovered that similar events were taking place.

In his bid to get to the bottom of the story, the adventurer uncovered myths in the Indigenous culture and other strange events which is guarantee to peak the reader’s interest.

Asked about his choice to write about the local myths and folklores, Jordan said he chose to write and share this story with the world before it dies or is written by an outsider.

“We have so many myths that no one knows about –the outside world –and it would be a shame to keep them hidden or worse yet, for someone outside to come and use them…and sells it back to us,” the Journalist and Writer said.

The novel can be found at the Austin’s Book store on Church Street, Georgetown. It can also be found on the Kindle app. You can also contact Michael Jordan for autographed copies by emailing: kamarangnight@gmail.com or calling +592 645 2447