George Lamming is one the great Caribbean writers on the subjects of decolonization and national reconstruction. He matured as a novelist of the English-speaking Caribbean at a crucial period in Caribbean history, a period of burgeoning nationalism and agitation for independence from British colonial rule. Not only are decolonization and reconstruction the main themes of his fiction, but he has also had a demonstrated commitment to use his talent as a writer, his charisma, and his skill as a public speaker for the furtherance of regional sovereignty. Lamming's importance as a writer is not simply based on his political activism, however. His work is seminal. He is foremost among those Caribbean writers who first articulated the symbolic systems that make up modern Caribbean writing. In each of his novels and in his collection of essays, The Pleasures of Exile (1960), Lamming conceptualizes core facets of the Caribbean experience in...