With the death of George Lamming, just days shy of his 95th birthday, a seminal chapter in the history of postcolonial English literature of the Caribbean has closed.Space does not permit but the most cursory tracing of the lines and edges of a remarkable life in the service of the people and places of the Caribbean. What we attempt here is to bring attention to the gravity of our loss and the imperative to create a lasting, meaningful memorial in acts present and future.Far from being “well-known locally, regionally and internationally”, as one Caribbean newspaper described in philistine terms, George Lamming was among the very last of the Grand Old Personages of modern West Indian writing - Edgar Mittleholzer, Samuel Selvon, Edward Kamau Brathwaite, Frank Collymore, V. S. Naipaul, Derek Walcott, John Figueroa, Andrew Salkey, Michael Anthony and Sylvia Wynter. Of this list, only Anthony and Wynter yet live.
