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.

'They won't know you, the you that's hidden somewhere in the castle of your skin' Nine-year-old G. leads a life of quiet mischief crab catching, teasing preachers and playing among the pumpkin vines. His sleepy fishing village in 1930s Barbados is overseen by the English landlord who lives on the hill, just as their 'Little England' is watched over by the Mother Country. Yet gradually, G. finds himself awakening to the violence and injustice that lurk beneath the apparent order of things. As the world he knows begins to crumble, revealing the bruising secret at its heart, he is spurred ever closer to a life-changing decision. Lyrical and unsettling, George Lamming's autobiographical coming-of-age novel is a story of tragic innocence amid the collapse of colonial rule. 'Rich and riotous' The Times 'Its poetic imaginative writing has never been surpassed' Tribune

Completed shortly before Walter Rodney's assassination in June 1980, "A History of the Guyanese Working People, 1881-1905" provides an original, well-informed, and perceptive contribution to the historiography of nineteenth-century Guyanese society. This comprehensive examination encompasses the history of African and Asian immigration into Guyana, the interaction of ethnic groups, the impact of British colonialism, economic and political constraints on the working class, and the social life of the masses.

Rodney argues that the social evolution of the Guyanese working people has been guided by specific material constraints and extremely powerful external focuses from Europe, Africa, Asia, and North America. He emphasizes the destructive fragmentation of the working class along ethnic, political, and social lines, encouraged by the legacy of slavery, postslavery immigration, legal distinctions between various classes of labor, and the economic bases of the society. in contrast to the well-defined middle and upper classes, the working people appeared divided, disorganized, and leaderless. Rodney's account ends in 1905, when the hardships and frustrations of the masses exploded into violence.

"A History of the Guyanese Working People, 1881-1905" will stand alone as a landmark study of the profound social upheaval that characterized Guyanese society in the years following emancipation. Anyone interested in the problems of underdeveloped nations, labor control, and the after-effects of colonialism and imperialism will appreciate the significance of this work.

'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 'George Lamming is one of the most important writers in the African diaspora, and one whose work has touched illuminatingly on significant aspects of colonialism, postcolonialism, and other matters vitally important to our comprehension of the worlds in which we live.' Michael Awkward George Lamming is one of the major figures in late twentieth century literature: his novels -- including In the Castle of My Skin (1953) -- were part of the social, cultural, and political revolution of modern Black writing. The Pleasures of Exile, originally published in 1960, is Lamming's first work of non-fiction. Written during his self-imposed exile in Britain, it explores themes of identity formation. Incorporating memoirs of his own experience, Lamming draws upon Shakespeare's The Tempest and CLR James's The Black Jacobins, as well as his own fiction and poetry. He conjures a rich spectrum of physical, intellectual, psychological and cultural responses to colonialism. This new edition, with a new preface and introduction, reveals a writer far ahead of his time: written before the term 'post-colonial' was invented, the book explores issues that are central to studies of literature today, including the politics of migration, cultural hybridity and minority discourse.

The Emigrants is an elaborately conceived novel, dense with dynamic characters and evocative details. First published in 1954, it focuses initially on the emigrant journey, then on the settling-in process. The journey by sea and subsequent attempts at resettlement provide the fictional framework for Lamming's exploration of the alienation and displacement caused by colonialism. This is the epic journey of a group of West Indians who emigrate to Great Britain in the 1950s in search of educational opportunities unattainable at home. Seeking to redefine themselves in the "mother country," an idealized landscape that they have been taught to revere, the emigrants settle uncomfortably in England's industrial cities. Within two years, ghettoization is firmly in place. The emigrants discover the meaning of their marginality in the British Empire in an environment that is unexpectedly hostile and strange. For some, alienation prompts a new sense of community, a new sense of identity as West Indians. For others, alienation leads to a crisis of confrontation with the law and fugitive status. There is a wealth of information here about the genesis of the black British community and about the cultural differences between the black British and West Indian/Caribbean.