Lamming hailed for putting Caribbean on the literary map

Pioneering Caribbean writer, novelist, and poet George Lamming is being remembered for his immense contributions to the regional and global literary world.

He died on June 4 at age 94.

Lamming was born in Barbados on June 8, 1927. He attended Roebuck Boys’ School and Combermere School.

Fostered by his high school teacher, Frank Collymore, he developed a passion for reading and began his literary career as a poet.

At 19, Lamming gained a teaching position at El Collegio de Venezuela, a boarding school for boys in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad. Between 1946 and 1950, he taught English to young Hispanic students before migrating to England.

He is the author of six novels: In the Castle of My Skin (1953); The Emigrants (1954); Of Age and Innocence (1958); Season of Adventure (1960); Water with Berries (1971); and Natives of My Person (1972).

Lamming is revered by many, including senior lecturer in the Department of Literatures in English at the University of The West Indies (UWI), Mona, Dr Norval Edwards.

Edwards said Lamming’s work always takes readers back to the fundamental beginnings of the Caribbean – reminding Caribbean people that the modern Caribbean emerges out of the processes of “colonial exploration and discovery, colonial exploitation and slavery, the plantation and indentureship”.

He told The Gleaner that Lamming was also an insightful and cultural critic, essayist, and theorist whose collection of essays, The Pleasures of Exile, is regarded as one of the most prescient anti-colonial explorations of Caribbean and colonial identity.

“It is seen as anticipating a lot of what is now called contemporary post-colonial theory. Lamming anticipated all of those ideas in The Pleasures of Exile, and in paying tribute to him, we need to recognise his manifold accomplishments. He wasn’t just a writer of imaginative fiction. He was a writer who also explored the political, historical and cultural realities of the Caribbean in order to chart our future,” the senior lecturer explained.

Edwards added that Lamming was devoted to his craft and was exceptional at creating complex characters.

He said the skill with which he wrote in the Bajan dialect and about the Bajan landscape and culture in In the Castle of My Skin, his first landmark novel, set a model for generations of Caribbean writers from 1953 to the present.

“I rate him highly as a pioneering Caribbean writer who was one of those figures, and unfortunately, he is the last of that generation. Lamming, Brathwaite, Walcott, Wilson Harris and V.S. Naipaul, among others, constituted a group of great writers who put the Caribbean on the literary map,” Edwards said, adding that Lamming’s passing marks the end of a moment in Caribbean literary history.

Lamming lectured extensively, holding positions at UWI, Mona, the University of Texas, the University of Pennsylvania, and Brown University. He also taught in Denmark, Tanzania, and Australia.

As Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley lauded his work, she said he stood for decades at the apex of the country’s pantheon of writers.

“Wherever George Lamming went, he epitomised that voice and spirit that screamed Barbados and Caribbean. And while he has written several novels and received many accolades, none of his works touches the Barbadian psyche like his first – In The Castle of My Skin – written back in 1953, but which today ought still to be required reading for every Caribbean boy and girl,” Mottley said.

The prime minister added that Barbados will miss his voice, his pen, and his signature hairstyle.

Professor Emerita Maureen Warner-Lewis told The Gleaner that he was a giant of Caribbean literature and one of the writers who helped to establish the integrity of Caribbean literature.

“He has taken part or made important pronouncements on Caribbean events such as the revolution in Cuba and the stature and significance of persons like Walter Rodney. From time to time, he has made important statements about Caribbean political events. We have lost an important voice, who continuously made assessments about Caribbean history and politics,” Warner-Lewis shared.

In 2008, Lamming was conferred with the Order of the Caribbean Community, which is CARICOM’s highest honour, for ‘55 years of extraordinary engagement with the responsibility of illuminating Caribbean identities, healing the wounds of erasure and fragmentation, envisioning possibilities and transcending inherited limitations’. He was applauded for his ‘intellectual energy, constancy of vision, and an unswerving dedication to the ideals of freedom and sovereignty’.

CARICOM Secretary General Dr Carla Barnett said the Caribbean is richer for Lamming’s interventions and poorer for his loss.

“George Lamming has left a treasure trove of works which remain relevant and reflect the Caribbean condition,” Barnett said.

Lamming is to be accorded an official funeral.