In the Castle of My Skin. This item is unavailable.In the Castle of My Skin

Nearly forty years after its initial publication, George Lamming's In the Castle of My Skin is considered a classic narrative of the Black colonial experience. This poetic autobiographical novel juxtaposes the undeveloped, unencumbered life of a small Caribbean island with the materialism and anxiety of the twentieth century. Written when Lamming was twenty-three and residing in England, In the Castle of My Skin poignantly chronicles the author's life from his ninth to his nineteenth year. Through the eyes of a young boy the experiences of colonial education, class tensions, and natural disaster are interpreted and reinterpreted, mediated through the presence of the old villagers and friends who leave for the mainland. One of the leading Black writers of the twentieth century, George Lamming is the author of numerous works exploring the colonial experience.

George Lamming's "In the Castle of My Skin" skilfully depicts the Barbadian psyche. Set against the backdrop of the 1930s riots which helped to pave the way for Independence and the modern Barbados, through the eyes of a young boy, Lamming portrays the social, racial, political and urban struggles with which Barbados continues to grapple even with some thirty-three years of Political Independence from Britain. Required reading for all Caribbean people. The novel also offers non-Barbadians and non-Caribbean people insight into the modern social history of Barbados and the Caribbean.

 

 

 

 

 

‘A writer of the people...one is back again in the pages of Huckleberry Finn_ the fundamental book of civilisation...Mr Lamming captures the myth-making and myth-dissolving mind of childhood’

                                         NEW STATESMAN

 

 

 

‘Its poetic imaginative writing has never been surpassed’

                                                TRIBUNE

 

 

‘A striking piece of work, a rich and memorable feat of imaginative interpretation’

                                               THE SPECTATOR

 

 

‘He produces anecdote after anecdote, rich and riotous.’

                                              THE TIMES

 

 

‘There is not a stock figure in the story... fluent, poetical, sophisticated.’

                                               THE SUNDAY TIMES