Dear Editor,
George Lamming, who died in Barbados on Saturday was a shy, non-egotistical, private, pensive and introspective man, and of utter sincerity. With Kamau Brathwaite, George Lamming put Barbados on the Global Literary map. He read his work at Warwick University Caribbean Studies Centre, and at the UK Society for Caribbean Studies in the 1980s and 1990s. As a fledgling academic and writer I was honoured to have met this great man and I chaired some of his meetings. He was a great supporter of Walter Rodney and the Rodney family and wrote a brilliant Preface to Walter’s magisterial book on the History of the Guyanese Working People.
It was my utmost honour to have spent time with him at Warwick, in Barbados at the Atlantis Hotel where he lived for many years, and at the major London South Bank Conference on him in 2003 which I chaired, (to celebrate his seminal novel, on its 50th anniversary, 1953 – 2003, In the castle of my skin), and at a Conference in Florida University on Caribbean Literature in the 1990s,at which he talked about journalism being a literary art. I disagreed politely with him, out of a narrow view of what ‘literary art’ meant , and he readily forgave my youthful lack of knowledge, when he could have chided me in public.
George Lamming was not interested in scoring points against other writers, especially those who were novices to the art of Literature. He was exceptionally kind, supportive and forgiving of younger writers.
I can definitely say the same of Wilson Harris and Samuel Selvon, who, with established and lauded reputations, always gave kindly advice and support and encouragement to younger Caribbean writers.
George Lamming also wrote powerfully on the contribution of Indo-Guyanese rice farmers in feeding Guyana. George Lamming like Rodney and other thinkers and activists was committed to a “harmonious” multicultural and multi-ethnic future for Guyana and the region. An amazing and inspiring man, and I was awed by him and so thankful for advice he gave me, as a novice scribbler on Caribbean Studies/ Caribbean fiction and poetry.
His death is a blow/setback to further visionary understanding of the cultural, literary, political and intellectual history of the Caribbean. But we will get there, George Lamming was convinced that younger, new thinkers, writers, artists and activists will continue the quest for the making of decent, compassionate and civilised Caribbean societies. May his novels and his journalism , laced with wisdom, remain in print. May the Barbados Government or CARICOM create a lasting archive of his work over 60 plus years and make it available to the world.
Yours faithfully,
David Dabydeen
Emeritus Professor, University o
Warwick and Hon Fellow at
Cambridge University
