CARICOM Secretary-General Dr Carla Barnett yesterday lauded Barbadian writer and journalist George Lamming who passed away on Saturday at 94.
“Poet, novelist, essay writer, orator, lecturer, teacher, editor and tireless activist, George Lamming was more than a literary icon.
He was an authentic Caribbean voice. In conferring the Community’s highest award, Order of the Caribbean Community (OCC), on Lamming in 2008, his citation noted that CARICOM was honouring `fifty-five years of extraordinary engagement with the responsibility of illuminating Caribbean identities, healing the wounds of erasure and fragmentation, envisioning possibilities, transcending inherited limitations’ and applauded his `intellectual energy, constancy of vision, and an unswerving dedication to the ideals of freedom and sovereignty.’”
Barnett said that those words fully encapsulated his extraordinary contribution to the Region he loved unreservedly and to which he dedicated his considerable skill.
“Our Community is richer for his interventions and poorer for his loss. George Lamming has left a treasure trove of works which remain relevant and reflects the Caribbean condition”, she said.
Barnett extended condolences on the death of this “true Caribbean icon”.
