In the Castle of My Skin

In the Castle of My Skin is a semiautobiographical novel by Caribbean author George Lamming, first published in 1970. The novel follows in the footsteps of other Caribbean narratives, a style of literature that initially grew out of the disconnect between an old world (Africa) and a new world (the Americas). Many Caribbean authors attempted to explain, disrupt, query, fuse, or simply explore dual consciousnesses brought about by traditions coming into contact with new ways of viewing the world and the self. Lamming’s narrative is considered mostly autobiographical because Lamming himself made the passage from Barbados to America, like some of his novel’s characters. Moreover, the struggles and lessons of his childhood parallel those of G.’s, one of the novel’s characters. The story is told from both G.’s first-person perspective and that of an omniscient third-person narrator. In the Castle of My Skin riffs off of Lamming’s childhood by sometimes fictionalizing his memories and recollections. Themes of collective consciousness versus individual will, language, racism, colonialism, education, and tragedy are explored, with historical events like World War II, the Middle Passage, and cataclysmic floods in Barbados grounding the text.