Post war literature course work The lonely Londoners

Diagram Description automatically generated. Post war literature course work The lonely Londoners.

Sam Selvon. Selvon was born just after the first world war in 1923. He worked for the Royal Naval Reserve when he was fifteen, then relocated to the Port of Spain at twenty. There he became a reporter and occasional literary writer for the Trinidad Guardian. He wrote his first novel, A brighter sun in 1952, Selvon tells the story of a sixteen-year-old Trinidadian boy, which holds similar notes to his later novel The lonely Londoners published in 1956..

Immigration after the second world war had a huge impact on many things in Britain, however it left the biggest mark on the British economy. Individuals from the commonwealth migrated to England during the war to serve in the military and work as weapon makers. people from places like Trinidad and Jamacia were granted unrestrained entry into the United Kingdom for the first time..

The characters in the novel also reflect how their skin, not their personality that is the cause of mistreatment, Galahad is forced to struggle with his racial identity throughout the novel, upset that his skin is the reason for rejection from jobs, social spaces etc. Another by product of racism is colorism, which is discrimination of individuals with a darker skin tone which is typical of people within the same racial or ethnic group. Selvon also gives insight to the ways the discrimination displayed by the British trickles into the way other black people treat each other..

However, class boundaries were a little skewed after the war, many having lost everything whilst others benefitted. . This change was largely the result of industrial and technological expansion which resulted in large corporations and government agencies which needed technologists and managers. National health systems were also introduced together with government grants to help parents raise children..

The Windrush generation brought over pieces of their culture that eventually integrated itself into British society, from reggae to calypso, fashion and food..