In the Castle of My Skin

Nearly forty years after its initial publication, George Lamming's In the Castle of My Skin is considered a classic narrative of the Black colonial experience. This poetic autobiographical novel juxtaposes the undeveloped, unencumbered life of a small Caribbean island with the materialism and anxiety of the twentieth century.

Written when Lamming was twenty-three and residing in England, In the Castle of My Skin poignantly chronicles the author's life from his ninth to his nineteenth year. Through the eyes of a young boy the experiences of colonial education, class tensions, and natural disaster are interpreted and reinterpreted, mediated through the presence of the old villagers and friends who leave for the mainland.

One of the leading Black writers of the twentieth century, George Lamming is the author of numerous works exploring the colonial experience.

George Lamming is a Barbados-born novelist, essayist, and poet. Currently Honorary Professor at the Errol Barrow Centre for the Creative Imagination at the University of the West Indies, Lamming has taught at universities around the world, including posts of Distinguished Visiting Professor at Duke University and Visiting Professor at Brown University. His books include The Emigrants (1954), Of Age and Innocence (1958), and The Pleasures of Exile (1960).