Colonialism

The main character and his story are defined by the history of colonialism, and through Singh’s specific perspective and experiences, the novel seeks to explore both the personal and large-scale consequences of colonial history. Singh was born on a fictional Caribbean island called Isabella, which is based on the author’s own birthplace of Trinidad. Isabella is shown to have a similar history to Trinidad, in that Isabella is a colony of the British Empire and made a push for independence around the middle of the 20th century. As Singh observes through his childhood and adulthood experiences, Isabella bears many salient marks of its colonial history, including socioeconomic divisions between colonists and colonized, and exploitation at the hands of both foreign and domestic forces. As a citizen of the British Empire, Singh enjoyed a life of privilege as a boy and disdained the impoverished and...