SOURCE: “George Lamming's In the Castle of My Skin: A Modern West Indian Novel,” in Ariel, Vol. 28, No. 2, April, 1997, pp. 103-14.

In the following essay, Kirpal defends In the Castle of My Skin in light of Neil ten Kortenaar's negative critical review (Ariel 22:2 April, 1991). Kirpal evaluates the novel from a different perspective and finds it to be a worthwhile political/social endeavor and a complex work of fiction.

Doubt about the merit and stature of postcolonial literary texts—rather than their paucity—is the factor that most likely discourages many Departments of English in India and elsewhere from formally introducing them into their syllabi. To change this situation, critics have to direct and show readers how to read and appraise these works so that they develop the necessary confidence in their literary and cultural value. In the absence of suitable critical guidelines, these Departments of English Literature seem...