The Representation Of Caribbean Immigration In Samuel Selvon’s The Lonely Londoners (1956)

Abstract

In his novel The Lonely Londoners (1956), Samuel Selvon contextualises the lives of Caribbean and their descendants in Britain through his first-hand experiences during the 1950s. He pens the tension between great expectations and realities that West Indians experienced in postwar London, following the huge wave of migration, also known as Windrush in 1948. The aim of this paper is to explore the immigration of West Indians to the Motherland as represented in Lonely Londoners, and to discover how this work critically contributed to the promotion and development of Caribbean and black British writing. The first part of the study focuses on the socio-historical background of the novel, and the second part mainly deals with the representation of immigration and its effects on Caribbean community in the novel. Finally, in the last section’ I would argue that Selvon with his distinctive narrative style in Lonely Londoners contributes to the transformation of new British society, and to the negotiation of a subaltern identity in the Motherland.

Keywords

• Göç
• Siyahi İngiliz Yazını
• Yerel Ağız
• Anavatan

Samuel Selvon’ın The Lonely Londoners (1956) Eserinde Karayip Göçü

Öz

Samuel Selvon, The Lonely Londoners (1956) adlı romanında Jamaika (Batı Hint) ve ardından takip eden neslin yaşamlarını 1950’lerde doğrudan deneyimler aracılığı okuruna sunar. Selvon, 1948’de Windrush olarak da bilinen dev göç dalgasının ardından Karayipli göçmenlerin savaş sonrası Londra’da yaşadıkları büyük beklentiler ve gerçekler arasındaki gerilimi eleştirel bir açıdan işler. Bu makalenin amacı, The Lonely Londoners’da temsil edildiği gibi Batı Hintlilerin Anavatan’a göçünü araştırmak, ve bu eserin Karayipler ve siyahi İngiliz yazınının tanıtımına ve gelişimine olan katkısını ortaya koymaktır. Çalışmanın ilk kısmı romanın sosyo-tarihsel arka planına odaklanırken, ikinci kısmı esas olarak göçün temsilini ve romandaki Karayip toplumu üzerindeki etkilerini ele almaktadır. Çalışmanın son kısmı ise, Selvon’un The Lonely Londoners’daki kendine özgü anlatı tarzı ile İngiliz toplumunun dönüşümüne ve Anavatan’daki alt kimliğin kabulüne olan katkısını tartışacaktır.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• Immigration
• Black British Writing
• Vernacular Dialect
• the Motherland

Kaynakça

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