‘A Brighter Sun’—Samuel Selvon. Allan Wingate. 1952.

Te Ao Hou, August 1957, Page 53

‘A Brighter Sun’—Samuel Selvon. Allan Wingate. 1952. ‘In Chaguanas, a sugar-cane district halfway down the western coast of the island, the biggest thing to happen, bigger even than the war, was Tiger's wedding’. The island is Trinidad, and Tiger is an Indian boy of sixteen about to marry Urmilla, a girl no older than himself, whom he has never seen. They set up house in a market-gardening district four miles from the capital Port of Spain, and Tiger began his struggle to become a man. He rented land, planted crops, sold vegetables and saved money. He learned to smoke and drink rum and to entertain visitors. Then because of his growing discontent and vague ambitions he learned to read and write and to find his way about the big city. When the Americans came and planned a new highway through his property he gave his garden up without a word and signed on gladly as a labourer, for wasn't this something big, something important to the whole island, something that would last? Tiger and Urmilla kept to themselves and made a few friends in the village. There were Rita and Joe, the negro couple who lived next door, and Tall Boy, the Chinese shopkeeper, and Sookdeo, the old Indian who died when the Americans took his garden, and Boysie, the young Indian who was saving up to go away. Indian, Negro, Chinese—three groups of people, with different backgrounds, outlooks, customs, even different food. And Samuel Selvon, himself an Indian born in Trinidad thirty-two years ago, knows and understands them all. His book is not only a moving story of a young couple's struggle to make the best of a poor lot, but also a sharp and detailed picture, beautifully written, of the mixed population that is Trinidad.