Submitted by David Comissiong
In December of 2015 I produced a newspaper article that acknowledged Barbados’ good fortune of possessing no less than four “living legends” of literature– George Lamming, Paule Marshall , Kamau Brathwaite and Austin “Tom” Clarke.
Well, as we learnt on Monday of this week, Tom Clarke is no longer with us!ย As a tribute to the late Tom Clarke, and as a “wake up call” to my fellow Barbadians, I now reproduce a slightly edited version of the said article:–
“In just a few months time Barbados will be celebrating its 50th year of Independence. I would therefore like – at this time – to urge the people, organisations, and Government of Barbados to make an effort to identify and catalogue the various “resources” that Barbados possesses, and to resolve to fully deploy and utilize these “resources” for the development of our country.
And one of the resources that I would like to identify and bring to the attention of the nation is the cultural and psychological power embedded in the collected works of Barbadosโ four living legends of literature – George Lamming, Paule Marshall, Kamau Brathwaite, and Austin “Tom” Clarke.
Yes, Barbados possesses no less than four living legends of literature! Just take a moment to think about the significance of that fact. How many other countries can boast of possessing as many as four living legends of world literature? I – for one – cannot think of any! There is no other Caribbean country, no Third World country, no so-called First World nation for that matter, that can claim to possess as many as four living legends of world literature!
But being able to lay claim to these four cultural treasures is a relatively superficial thing! The real issue is – do we recognize the valuableness of the resource that lies in our hand, and are we putting it to good use?
The youngest of the four living legends is the 81 year old Toronto-based Austin “Tom” Clarke, the winner of such prestigious international awards as Canadaโs W. O. Mitchell Prize, Cubaโs Casa de las Americas Prize, and the Martin Luther King Junior Award for excellence in writing. Tom Clarkeโs body of work consists of ten novels, six short story collections and three memoirs, most of which are based either in Toronto or in Barbados itself.
In Clarkeโs Toronto-based stories, we are able to more clearly discern the elements of the true Barbadian, portrayed as they are against a foreign back-drop. And, as Barbadian literacy critic, John Wichkam, has observed – Clarke brings to this act of re-creation a faithful ear for the accent and rhythms of our Barbadian nation-language, and a powerful visual memory.
But there are also the Barbados based novels such as Growing Up Stupid Under The Union Jack, The Prime Minister, and The Polished Hoe, which help us to understand and to come to terms with the trauma of colonialism and the psychic damage that it inflicted
The most senior of our four living legends of literature is 88 year old George Lamming, who is considered to be the dean of Caribbean writers – an accolade bestowed upon him by the great literary critic, C.L.R. James, way back in the 1960’s.
George Lamming is the author of six novels – In the Castle of My Skin (1953), The Emigrants (1954), Of Age and Innocence (1958), Seasons of Adventure (1960), Water with Berries (1971), Natives of My Person (1972) – and of three books of critical essays, namely Pleasures of Exile (1960), Coming, Coming Home (1995), and Sovereignty of the Imagination (2009).
Lammingโs fellow “legend”, Kamau Brathwaite, explained the ground-breaking significance of Lammingโs first novel as follows –
“Then in 1953, George Lammingโs In the Castle of My Skin appeared and everything was transformed. Here breathing to me from every pore of line and page was the Barbados I had lived. The words, the rhythms, the cadences, the scenes, the people, their predicament.”
In addition, C.L.R. James never spared any opportunity to bring to our attention the many profound and cutting-edge cultural/political critiques and perspectives contained in Lammingโs works. A couple examples from just one novel will suffice to prove the point:-
“Free is how you is from the start. Anโ when it look different you got to move, just move! Anโ when you moving say that it is a natural freedom that make you move”.
(Season of Adventure, 1960)
“Until the age of ten, Powell and I had lived together, equal in the affection of two mothers…….. Powell and I were taught at the same Primary school. And then the division came. I got a public scholarship which started my migration into the world of the educated….the elite…… which now shut Powell and the whole village right out of my future….. I attached myself to that new privilege…….. I believe that the mad impulse which drove Powell to his criminal defeat was largely my doing……. I am responsible for what happened to my brothers.”
(Season of Adventure, 1960)
The second living legend in order of seniority is 86 year old Paule Marshall, who was born in Brooklyn, New York City to Barbadian parents, and who not only grew up in a tightly knit Barbadian immigrant community, but also visited and lived in Barbados for varying periods of time.
The highly acclaimed Paule Marshall has produced five novels, four of which explore the history, culture, vernacular, predicament and spirit of the Barbadian people “at home and abroad” – Brown Girl, Brownstones (1959), The Chosen Place, The Timeless People (1969), Praisesong for the Widow (1983), Daughters (1991), and The Fisher King ( 1998) – and a Barbados-steeped memoir entitled Triangular Road (2009).
Ms. Marshallโs novels are filled with Barbadian female characters who would resonate with and speak in a profound way to the current generation of Barbadian girls and women, if only these novels were made widely available in our country! I refer to such characters as middle-aged Silla Boyce and her Brooklyn born daughter, Selina, whose coming of age is explored in Brown Girl, Brownstones; racially conscious Merle Kinbona ,who defends the cultural integrity of the island in The Chosen Place, The Timeless People; and the sophisticated 1980’s young professional – Ursa Mackenzie – who, out of a sense of love for her country and her politican-father, sabotages the latterโs election campaign and his Cahill-type plan to sell out the country, in Daughters.
Marshallโs novels also express what Kamau Brathwaite has described as the “literature of re-connection” with Africa. Thus, in describing a number of the quintessentially Barbadian characters in Chosen Place, Timeless People, Ms Marshall reaches back to Africa:-
“A…… strikingly tall, lean old man….. His face, his neck, his clean-shaven skull, had the elongated intentionally distorted look to them of a Benin mask or a sculpted thirteenth century Ife head”….. Whereas, Delbert, the shopkeeper “was huge with massive limbs….. He was the chief presiding over the palavering …. the colourful shirt he had on was his robe of office; the battered Panama hat….. his Chieftanโs umbrella, and the bottle of white rum he held, the palm wine with which he kept the palaver and made libation to the ancestral gods.”
Our fourth living legend is the 85 year old Kamau Brathwaite, whose works of poetry, drama, history, literacy criticism, and cultural analysis are far too numerous to list!
I will therefore satisfy myself with stating that Kamau Brathwaite is easily one of the worldโs most outstanding intellectuals and scholars, and that he should have won the Nobel prize for literature many times over!
I will also recommend that our educational authorities should deem at least three of Brathwaiteโs works essential and mandatory texts for our secondary and tertiary curriculum:- The Arrivants (Kamauโs first, Pan-African based, trilogy of poetical works); Ancestors (Kamauโs second, and Barbados-centred, trilogy); and Barbabajan Poems (Kamauโs encyclopaedic exploration of Barbadian poetry, history, landscapes and culture).
Fellow Barbadians: we will not have the living legends with us forever! Let us, therefore, show them our appreciation, love and respect – now! And let us have the good sense to do ourselves a big favour by embracing, reading, and making full use of their invaluable works!”
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