Beyond Calypso: New Perspectives on Samuel Selvon
2 July 2011, University of Warwick
Malachi McIntosh (Warwick) & Stephanie Decouvelaere (Lyon 3)
Beyond Calypso: New Perspectives on Samuel Selvon was a collaborative effort that
involved representatives of the Yesu Persaud Centre for Caribbean Studies at
Warwick and the Institute of Transtexual and Transcultural Studies at the University
of Lyon 3, and the support of the HRC conference fund. The concept emerged from a
meeting between Malachi McIntosh and Stephanie Decouvelaere at the Society for
Caribbean Studies’ 2010 conference. Two early-career scholars, McIntosh and
Decouvelaere were both in the midst of research into the life and work of the 1950sera first-wave of Caribbean writers. Both felt that, of all the writers they worked with,
the Trinidadian author Samuel Selvon (1923-1994) was the least often subject to
thorough critiques despite his fundamental importance to the development of
Caribbean literature. The conference was designed to address this issue by uniting
scholars from across Europe and the Caribbean to share new work on the author,
advance insight into his oeuvre, and create a publishable programme of
contributions.
The event successfully met all of its objectives. Twenty-five established and
early-career scholars came together on 2 July 2011 for a day of conference papers,
creative writing, and archival material all focused on Selvon’s life and work. The day
began with a keynote speech from Alison Donnell, Reader at the University of
Reading and a pioneer into new approaches to the major figures in the Caribbean
canon. Dr Donnell’s paper, “Kinship, Friendship and Living together in Selected
Writings of Sam Selvon” advanced the argument that Selvon’s texts, unlike more
recent Caribbean writing from the likes of Andrea Levy, showcases the conflicts and
strains that are a necessary part of “living together” in mixed communities and
therefore challenged anodyne perceptions of multiculturalism. Dr Donnell’s primary
focus was Selvon’s The Housing Lark and how that utterly neglected text used its
narrative of a group of Caribbean immigrants’ attempts to save for a home to explore
the sacrifices and successes that emerge from sharing space.
The day continued with a papers from Lorna Burns, of Glasgow University,
and Stephanie Decouvelaere that advanced Dr Donnell’s thoughts on Selvon’s
under-read texts. Lorna spoke about An Island is A World while Stephanie’s paper
analysed Selvon’s screenplay and radio plays. Lorna’s paper intertwined Selvon’s
writing with the theory of Gilles Deleuze to focus upon the way in which his particular
brand of humanism functioned on the page; while Stephanie revealed tension in
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Selvon’s portrayal of the second generation of Caribbean immigrants in London that
hinted at his prejudicial attitudes toward their handling of the first generation’s legacy.
The second half of the day began with a presentation of archival video
footage of Selvon reading from his novel The Housing Lark in the company of
Susheila Nasta and David Dabydeen. Selvon’s reading was introduced by a video
message from his grandniece Alison Gibb. Alison spoke of the man she knew, the
human being behind the writing, a figure notable for his family focus and eschewal of
the literary world. After Selvon’s reading, the audience heard papers from Letizia
Gramaglia, of Warwick, and Kate Houlden of Queen Mary University London, on
“Selvon in the Archive” and “‘The Sex Life Gone Wild’: Sam Selvon’s The Lonely
Londoners (1956) and Andrew Salkey’s Escape to an Autumn Pavement (1960)”.
Letizia spoke of the controversy surrounding an early Selvon short story, “Behind the
Hummingbird”. The story, broadcast on the BBC radio show Caribbean Voices,
featured negative portrayals of life in Trinidad and garnered Selvon a short-term ban
from the BBC. As a compliment to Letizia’s brief foray into the darker side of Selvon’s
writing, Kate considered at the representation of black male sexuality in Selvon’s
most famous novel and how it was compatible with a stock of writing on mixed
relationships and deviant sexuality by his contemporaries. By engaging with the more
controversial aspects of Selvon’s work, both papers read against the grain of
standard Selvon criticism, which, in the main, is concerned with the author’s humour.
The day concluded with presentations from the prolific Trinidadian author
Vahni Capildeo and Professor Kenneth Ramchand, current President of the
University of Trinidad and Tobago and a personal friend of Selvon’s during his life.
Vahni’s presentation included a paper on the reactions of Trinidadian women readers
to Selvon’s representation of their community and her own story that adapted
Selvon’s themes of displacement and longing for home to twenty-first century
England. Professor Ramchand closed the day with a wide-ranging lecture, “The
Other Samuel Selvon”. In his presentation he blended knowledge of the man with
knowledge of his writing and presented insight into both areas. He advanced the idea
that Selvon was a philosopher and a poet, re-casting the author as one concerned
with deep existential themes from his earliest work, but who soured into a harsh
satirist when his career progressed and his work failed to address the problems that
preoccupied him.
The conference was a resounding success and, in line with the organisers’
aims for its outcome, they have recently confirmed that papers will be collected in
upcoming special issues of Wasafiri (2013) and The Journal of West Indian Literature
(2012) that they will co-edit.
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