Migrant Modernism: Postwar London and the West Indian Novel

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments This project has an embarrassingly long lineage, hearkening back to two classes, one taught by John Bishop and the other by VèVè Clark, coinciding one fortuitous, long-ago semester. Some years later, Joseph Clarke rekindled my interest in Caribbean literature, for which I am grateful. My primary debt of gratitude is to Jim English, whose patience, insight, wisdom, and humor have been instrumental at every stage. Memorably for me, the contours of the project took shape only after Jim crisply summarized, in one sentence, what I had spent the previous half hour desperately trying to articulate. The depth and incisiveness of his intellect have proven similarly important to my thinking ever since, if primarily as aspirations. The unbounded generosity and erudition of Jean-Michel Rabaté and the perceptive, considerate criticism of Ania Loomba likewise deserve more thanks than can adequately be expressed here. Initial research for this project was enabled by a grant from the J. William Fulbright Association. Brooklyn College’s Leonard & Clare Tow Faculty Travel Fellowship, the Brooklyn College New Faculty Fund, a PSC-CUNY Grant, and a British Studies Fellowship from the Harry S. Ransom Center have also provided generous and much appreciated support for research specific to this project. Colleagues in the English Department at Brooklyn College—especially James Davis, Joseph Entin, Claire Joubert, Nicola Masciondaro, Geoff Minter, Martha Nadell, Roni Natov, Ellen Tremper, and Joy Wang—provided a rich and welcoming environment in which to do intellectual work. My current colleagues at Washington University in St. Louis have likewise been a blessing, x Acknowledgments and indeed my friendships with so many make it impracticable to acknowledge them all individually here. Those who have provided commentary and guidance specifically on this project include Daniel Grausam,Marina MacKay, William Maxwell, William McKelvy, and Vincent Sherry. Both institutions also provided important research time and have my sincere thanks for that. Further afield, my time in Barbados was enriched by the kindness of the literature faculty at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill, especially Jane Bryce, Ian Craig, Mark McWatt, and Evelyn O’Callaghan. Philip Nanton, though he absconded to Grenada for the year, also deserves mention. At the University of the West Indies, Mona, I would like to thank Michael Bucknor, Victor Chang, and, especially, Nadi Edwards and Schontal Moore for their unaccountable hospitality and intellectual camaraderie. Bill Schwarz and Rebecca Walkowitz were initial, helpful supporters of my work on this project, and I would also like to thank Peter Kalliney for providing early feedback to which I may still not have fully done justice. Matthew Hart has graciously suffered through much of this project’s long genesis, offering intellectual inspiration or the distractions of drink, as necessary. I am also deeply grateful to Cathie Brettschneider at the University of Virginia Press for her support of this project and to the anonymous readers of the initial manuscript, whose insights have helped to make this book a vastly better one than it would otherwise have been. Two parts of chapter 3 have previously been published.“Exile and Cunning : The Tactical Difficulties of George Lamming” was originally published in Contemporary Literature 47.4 (Winter 2006) and is held in copyright by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System. It is reproduced, in revised form, courtesy of the University of Wisconsin Press. “Changing the Subject: The Aesthetics and Politics of Reading in the Novels of George Lamming ” was originally published in The Locations of George Lamming, edited by Bill Schwarz and published by Macmillan Caribbean in 2007. It is reproduced , in revised form, courtesy of the publisher. I am thankful for these permissions to reprint. Finally, I would like to acknowledge my family. My parents have, to my amazement,never ceased offering love and support.My brother and his family have always been welcoming and encouraging,despite the arcane nature of my chosen pursuits.Rosenfelds near and far have likewise been patiently supportive of my work. Most important to me, indeed the grounding source of value for anything I do, are Jessica Rosenfeld and Samantha Rosalind Brown—sine qua non. MIGRANT MODERNISM ...