Raphael John-Lall

raphael.lall@guardian.co.tt

Ba­jan nov­el­ist and es­say­ist George Lam­ming passed away yes­ter­day at age 94, four days shy of his 95th birth­day.

From 1946 to 1950, Lam­ming taught Eng­lish at El Col­le­gio de Venezuela, a board­ing school for boys in Port-of-Spain, af­ter which he mi­grat­ed to Eng­land.

In Eng­land, he went in­to the field of jour­nal­ism and in 1951 he be­came a broad­cast­er for the BBC Colo­nial Ser­vice. His writ­ings were pub­lished in the Bar­ba­di­an mag­a­zine Bim, edit­ed by his teacher Frank Col­ly­more, and the BBC’s Caribbean Voic­es ra­dio se­ries broad­cast his po­ems and short prose. Lam­ming him­self read po­ems on Caribbean Voic­es, in­clud­ing some by the young Derek Wal­cott.

Lam­ming 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).

His works re­flect­ed his in­ter­est in the so­cio-eco­nom­ic sit­u­a­tion Caribbean peo­ple faced not on­ly in this re­gion but al­so in the de­vel­oped world.

TRIB­UTES

Trib­utes poured in for this Caribbean lit­er­ary gi­ant.

In a state­ment fol­low­ing his death, Prime Min­is­ter of Bar­ba­dos Mia Mot­t­ley paid trib­ute to Lam­ming, say­ing he stood for decades at the apex of the is­land’s pan­theon of writ­ers.

“To­day, it is our in­ter­na­tion­al­ly recog­nised and re­spect­ed nov­el­ist, es­say­ist and po­et, George Lam­ming, who with­out doubt stood for decades at the apex of our is­land’s pan­theon of writ­ers. In­deed, George Lam­ming must be con­sid­ered one of the most fa­mous writ­ers this re­gion has pro­duced. George Lam­ming was the quin­tes­sen­tial Ba­jan, born in as tra­di­tion­al a dis­trict as you can get—Car­ring­ton Vil­lage, on the out­skirts of Bridgetown. And his ed­u­ca­tion was as au­then­ti­cal­ly Ba­jan as one could pos­si­bly ac­quire—Roe­buck Boys’ School and Comber­mere.”

In her trib­ute, Mot­t­ley al­so said wher­ev­er George Lam­ming went, he epit­o­mised that voice and spir­it that screamed Bar­ba­dos and the Caribbean. 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, which to­day ought still to be re­quired read­ing for every Caribbean boy and girl.

“He won in­ter­na­tion­al awards, in­clud­ing his first nov­el, In the Cas­tle of My Skin, win­ning a Som­er­set Maugh­am Award. In 2011, the As­so­ci­a­tion of Cuban Writ­ers and Artists (UN­EAC) award­ed him the first-ever Caribbean Hi­bis­cus Prize.”

Guyanese jour­nal­ist Rick­ey Singh lament­ed Lam­ming’s death and said his in­tel­lec­tu­al con­tri­bu­tion is need­ed to­day in the Caribbean to face the cur­rent prob­lems.

In his trib­ute, Singh said Lam­ming was a pow­er­ful Caribbean voice–one that is ur­gent­ly re­quired even now, “as CARI­COM hov­ers over im­por­tant de­ci­sions to be made on the 2022 Sum­mit of the Amer­i­c­as.”

He said Lam­ming was well known as an out­stand­ing and fear­less voice against ex­ter­nal pres­sures aimed at un­der­min­ing na­tion­al and re­gion­al uni­ty and po­lit­i­cal sov­er­eign­ty.

“There is no doubt that he would have ad­vised Caribbean gov­ern­ments to ab­sent them­selves from this gath­er­ing. He nev­er shied away, nor was he ever am­biva­lent when it came to urg­ing the CARI­COM gov­ern­ments nev­er to wa­ver when the mo­ment arose to be firm in their sol­i­dar­i­ty on com­mon­ly held val­ues, or their right to re­gion­al uni­ty and re­la­tion­ship.”

He de­scribed Lam­ming, "the es­teemed au­thor and so­cial com­men­ta­tor" as "a dear friend and broth­er."

"My fam­i­ly must for­ev­er be grate­ful to him when in 1983, he as­sem­bled and led stu­dents on a peace­ful march to protest the re­vo­ca­tion of my work per­mit be­cause of my crit­i­cism of the ill-fat­ed Grena­da in­va­sion."

"His ex­ten­sive body of work re­flects a deep and per­son­al un­der­stand­ing of the com­plex his­tor­i­cal, cul­tur­al and po­lit­i­cal land­scape of the re­gion."

Singh said, "George’s in­flu­ence on acad­e­mia and po­lit­i­cal thought has been pro­found. It was my good for­tune to lis­ten to him de­liv­er var­i­ous pub­lic lec­tures across the cam­pus­es of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies. Par­tic­u­lar­ly mem­o­rable, was an event at the Cave Hill cam­pus in 2004, where in his unique bari­tone, for a breath­tak­ing two hours, he mas­ter­ful­ly weaved to­geth­er a re­view of four decades of his lit­er­ary work.

"George com­mand­ed re­spect for his un­flinch­ing forth­right­ness when­ev­er the oc­ca­sion arose, of speak­ing truth to pow­er–es­pe­cial­ly when it came to the preser­va­tion and dig­ni­ty of the call to lead­er­ship of the CARI­COM mem­ber states.

"There was al­so a gen­tle­ness and hu­mil­i­ty to George that was rarely seen save for those in­ti­mate with him. On oc­ca­sion I wit­nessed his qui­et and re­spect­ful ac­qui­esce to his moth­er’s play­ful chid­ing. He loved her dear­ly. He was and will al­ways be re­mem­bered by me as a jour­nal­ist who had the priv­i­lege of hav­ing a close and spe­cial friend­ship with such a bril­liant schol­ar, and a great man."

Lo­cal po­et and cul­tur­al ac­tivist Ein­tou Pearl Springer in a video post­ed to her Face­book page called him “a gi­ant of lit­er­ary and rev­o­lu­tion­ary work” in the Caribbean re­gion.

“My men­tor, my teacher, my friend just passed away. We spent many long hours to­geth­er. He took me to Cu­ba, we were in Grena­da for the Grena­da Rev­o­lu­tion. We en­joyed many a good drink to­geth­er…As you move from be­ing an el­der to be­ing an an­ces­tor, we pay homage to George Lam­ming. I love you.”