Samuel Selvon is a seminal figure in the Caribbean, Canadian and black British literary traditions, but one often under-analysed – the examination of his oeuvre largely restricted to considerations of his calypso aesthetics, dialectal humour and social realism. Although Selvon is a major author, the bulk of his writing remains unread and the contexts of his production, as well as his life as a writer, are largely misunderstood.

Beyond Calypso breaks this trend by presenting wide-ranging analyses that consider the full body of Selvon’s writing. Including assessments of the poetry, short stories and non-fiction that have thus far escaped sustained critical attention, Beyond Calypso unites scholars from the three sites from which Selvon pursued his literary career and progresses past the standard themes that have dominated previous assessments of the author. The collection begins with a survey of Selvon’s criticism by the leading Selvon scholar Kenneth Ramchand, and moves on to draw together new archival research, surveys of hitherto out-of-print texts, broad readings of Selvon’s works and more focused analyses.

Presenting a fresh and comprehensive engagement with the work of one of the most significant figures in Caribbean and world literature, Beyond Calypso reinvigorates interest in Samuel Selvon and sets the agenda for future Selvon studies. 

Malachi McIntosh is a lecturer in the Faculty of English at the University of Cambridge. He writes fiction and non-fiction and has published work on Anglophone and Francophone Caribbean literature, migrant writing, press and political discourse and world and postcolonial literary theory. His most recent work is the monograph Emigration and Caribbean Literature (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015).