First published in 1958, this novel tells the continuing story of Tiger and Urmilla, a young Trinidadian couple struggling to lead an independent life away from traditional Indian ways. When Tiger's father claims to have a promotion as a supervisor on a sugar estate and begs his son to work as his book keeper, Tiger reluctantly agrees. The year spent working in the hated cane fields and being treated with demeaning contempt by the white overseer tests Tiger and his marriage to the core, but ultimately proves the provocation ...
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First published in 1958, this novel tells the continuing story of Tiger and Urmilla, a young Trinidadian couple struggling to lead an independent life away from traditional Indian ways. When Tiger's father claims to have a promotion as a supervisor on a sugar estate and begs his son to work as his book keeper, Tiger reluctantly agrees. The year spent working in the hated cane fields and being treated with demeaning contempt by the white overseer tests Tiger and his marriage to the core, but ultimately proves the provocation to true independence and new clarity in relation to his father, Indian tradition, and whiteness. This is a key exploration of the process of dougla identity--the Creolizing of Indo-Caribbean experience--and displays the best qualities of Selvon's seemingly casual art.
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Seller's Description:
Good. Good condition. (Trinidad and Tobago) A copy that has been read but remains intact. May contain markings such as bookplates, stamps, limited notes and highlighting, or a few light stains.
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Seller's Description:
New York. 1959. St Martin's Press. 1st American Edition. Very Good in Slightly Worn Dustjacket. 246 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Jack Hough. keywords: Literature Caribbean Trinidad. FROM THE PUBLISHER-‘Tiger boy, one thing with you, your mind not hard to change. One day you singing the blues, the next day you humming a hot calypso. ' In the spicy racial melange of Five Rivers Village on Trinidad Island, Tiger from Chaguanas is a man apart-a born leader, quick-witted, rebellious, vitally dominant. Tiger's refusal to embrace the delicious indolence of native life strikes the counterpoint of discord in the easy rhythm of the Island. After a hilarious all-night ‘freeness' where friends come and go with the rum flow, Tiger turns his back on his home village to follow his father to the experimental sugar cane station in Five Rivers. ‘You stay in one place and you live and dead and that's all, ' Tiger decides as he begins his year of trial. High-spirited and restless, unfulfilled by a seemingly useless education (‘. is like one-eye man in blind-eye country'), Tiger races along a precipice, stumbling almost fatally into a dramatic encounter with the bored and beautiful wife of the white plantation supervisor. The resolution of this meeting is Tiger's coming-of-age, as his early contempt of his people's simple ways Samuel Selvon gives ground to a deep and meaningful understanding of Island life. It is through Tiger that we meet the delightful potpourri of islanders: the high dreamer, More Lazy, who can savor life only while reclining; the quixotic Hindu peddler, Soylo, the somnambulant Chinese shopkeeper Otto, dedicated to the pacific joys of opium and sleep; his young bride, Berta, who in flirtatious passing manages to disrupt not only Otto, but the males of the whole village. Samuel Selvon, a native Trinidadian, uses the idiom of his people to evoke the exuberance and gaiety, the pleasures and pastimes, with which the islanders hold their precarious existence in innocent embrace. Written with compassion and understanding, this quickly moving story runs a fluent commentary on the ways and byways of native society that will surprise and delight the enamoured observer of island life. inventory #3193.
