Among the new titles by Ian Randle Publishers that will be available at the Caribbean Studies Association Conference in Curaçao will be The George Lamming Reader: The Aesthetics of Decolonisation. Edited by Anthony Bogues, The Aesthetics of Decolonisation is part of the Caribbean Reasonings series. It includes selected interviews, essays, and lectures by the author of such well-known works as In the Castle of My Skin, The Emigrants, Of Age and Innocence, Season of Adventure, Natives of My Person, The Pleasures of Exile, and Water with Berries.

Lamming is this year’s winner of the Caribbean Hibiscus Prize; see Barbadian Writer George Lamming Awarded Caribbean Hibiscus Prize; also see previous post George Lamming (Barbados, 1927).

Here is the publisher’s description: George Lamming is one of the best known, certainly one of the most highly regarded contemporary writers from the Caribbean. Spanning nearly 60 years and encompassing fiction, poetry and critical essays, Lamming’s writing covers the length and breadth of Caribbean intellectual, cultural, political and literary life. Credited as a part of that group of Caribbean activists who awoke the Caribbean to its identity and more specifically to its cultural identity, his works have focused on finding new political and social identity. Indeed, Lamming was a seminal figure in the Caribbean 20th century intellectual tradition and radical anti-colonial tradition.

In The Aesthetics of Decolonisation, friend and colleague Anthony Bogues pulls together Lamming’s critical works, some previously published, some given as addresses, lectures and interviews. This is accompanied by critical reflections on Lamming’s work by noted scholars such as Andaiye and Sandra Pouchet Paquet as well as a foreword by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o. This much needed reader on Lamming and his work examines the history of the Caribbean and the categories which continue to shape and influence Caribbean identity in our contemporary world.

Anthony Bogues is the Harmon Family Professor of Africana Studies, affiliated with Brown University’s Department of Political Science and Department of Modern Culture and Media. He is also a faculty fellow at the Cogut Center for Humanities. Bogues is the author of four books, two edited volumes, and numerous articles in the fields of intellectual history, political thought, literary and cultural studies. He is considered to be a major figure in the field of Africana intellectual history and political theory and one of the leading intellectual historians of the Caribbean.

For purchasing information, see http://www.ianrandlepublishers.com/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=278&category_id=17&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=53

For a concise biography of George Lamming, see http://english.emory.edu/Bahri/Lamming.html

For more information on Anthony Bogues, see http://news.brown.edu/pressreleases/2010/08/convocation