TRIBUTE
a Caribbean New World society with momentous consequences within the Caribbean space. Season of Adventure (1960) employs the female body as a visceral site of exploration as regards different ontological systems for Caribbean peoples in their outworking of their own identity. Water with Berries (1971) engages English playwright, William Shakespeare’s 1623 work, The Tempest , to unearth extant complexities in the relationship between the British colonial mother and the ones whom she colonised. Lamming’s 1971 novel Natives of My Person extensively probes the lived reality of the European coloniser, making us aware that our understanding of self is inextricably linked to our understanding of those who colonised us. l
His writing has been, and continues to be, valuable to
Caribbean intellectual thought, as it probes notions of Caribbean identity in the aftermath of the region’s colonial past. Noted Lamming scholar Sandra Pouchet Paquet in Twentieth-Century Caribbean and Black African Writers wrote of Lamming: “His work is seminal ... In each of his novels and his collection of essays ... Lamming conceptualises core facets of the Caribbean experience in language and forms that continue to exercise a shaping influence over the literature of the region.” A ll of Lamming’s novels treat with integral facets of the colonial experience and situation. His first novel, In the Castle of My Skin , which is regarded by many as the quintessential Caribbean novel, was written when Lamming was just a young emigrant to England in his 20s. In the Castle of My Skin was the harbinger to literary enquiries into the psychical effects of colonialism on the colonised. His second novel, The Emigrants (1954), considers the Caribbean New World individual in transit to England as “mother country”. Of Age and Innocence (1958) prophetically extrapolates a tripartite governmental system to
Lamming was a literary genius and a profound Caribbean thinker who will be greatly missed.
Alfrena Jamie Pierre is a PhD candidate in Literatures in English at The University of the West Indies. Her doctoral research focuses on George Lamming, and she has presented academic papers on Lamming’s work at local, regional and international conferences.
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