George Lamming’s “The Occasion for Speaking” – A Postcolonial discourse

Abstract

George Lamming is an ardent West Indian writer who has authored about six novels and numerous texts of non-fiction. His debut novel, In the Castle of My Skin (1953) became a highly popular critically acclaimed novel in the post-colonial literature. Lamming plays a crucial role in the positioning of the West-Indian writers in English literature. His astoundingly brilliant and widely controversial collection of essays, The Pleasures of Exile (1960) features the post-colonial issues faced by the West-Indians including migration, exile, identity crisis, hunger for recognition and the mixed cultural affiliations exhibited by the post-colonies. This paper tries to trace the postcolonial traits in Lamming’s essay, The Occasion for Speaking and thus, acquire a refined understanding of the thoughts and ideals of the colonized West-Indian who is in exile.