Wilson Harris, a Guyanese novelist and essayist who addressed themes of colonialism and cultural identity in weaving stories of history, fantasy, myth and philosophy, died on March 8 in Chelmsford, England. He was 96.

His death was announced by his son Nigel Harris.

Mr. Harris, who had lived in England for almost 60 years, was one of the leading intellectuals to come out of Guyana, a small country on the northern coast of South America. His background was unusual for a writer: He had been a land surveyor for almost 15 years. But that work, which involved trips into Guyana’s jungles and vast savanna and contact with its diverse populations, turned out to be excellent preparation for a literary career.

Al Creighton wrote in a review in The Independent of London in 1993 that Mr. Harris’s works “are products of profound relationships with Guyana’s Amazonian landscape and with ancient Amerindian and European myths, the classics and Continental philosophy.”

As Mr. Harris himself put it in a 1992 interview with Project Muse: “The rain forest made an enormous impact on me. I learned that one should not attempt to — indeed one cannot — colonize the unconscious.”