The Pleasures of Exile (Ann Arbor Paperbacks) - Hardcover

Lamming, George

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0472094661 ISBN 13: 9780472094660

Publisher: The University of Michigan Press, 1992

Synopsis

In The Pleasures of Exile, as in his other works, George Lamming embraces the intricate issues of colonization and decolonization with a canny combination of playfulness and seriousness, irony and commitment. "[It] is a reciprocal process," Lamming observes, "to be a colonial is to be a man in a certain relation; and this relation is an example of exile." Through a series of interrelated essays, The Pleasures of Exile explores the cultural politics and relationships created in the crucible of colonization. Drawing on Shakespeare's The Tempest and C. L. R. James's The Black Jacobins, as well as his own fiction and poetry, Lamming deftly locates the reader in a specific intellectual and cultural domain while conjuring a rich and varied spectrum of physical, intellectual, psychological, and cultural responses to colonialism. "My subject," he writes, "is the migration of the West Indian writer, as colonial and exile, from his native kingdom, once inhabited by Caliban, to the tempestuous island of Prospero's and his language. This book is a report on one man's way of seeing."

About this title

Review:

Migration in the '50s and '60s was formative for a whole generation of Caribbean writers, artists and intellectuals who, as Lamming himself says, became 'West Indian' in London. The Pleasures of Exile is simply the most poignant, eloquent, insightful and poetic set of reflections on that experience. (Stuart Hall)

The passing of more than 40 years hasn't dulled the sheer brazen confidence with which George Lamming brought a West Indian way of seeing to British life and literature. (Peter Hulme)

About the Author:

George Lamming was born in Barbados, emigrated to Britain in 1950 and became a broadcaster for the BBC. In 1967 he became writer-in-residence and lecturer at the University of West Indies. Since then he has been visiting professor at a number of European and American universities. He is the author of six highly regarded novels.

About this edition

• Publisher: The University of Michigan Press
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 0472094661
• ISBN 13: 9780472094660
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 300