Samuel Selvon`s The Lonely Londoners: A Significant Example of World Literature Written in English.

Abstract

World literature is seen as a mode of reading across national boundaries. The Eurocentric nature of world literature in the post-colonial era has made The Lonely Londoners a good example of world literature as it is originally written in English. It is recognized as a text whose reception extends its local readership. This is so because immigrants from around the world relate to the problems encountered while trying to be upwardly mobile in the British center as highlighted in the novel. This study is interested in the discussion of the novel The Lonely Londoners as a significant example of world literature written in English. The study adopts textual analysis as its method. This is done within the theoretical framework of post-colonialism as proposed by scholars. The study shows that The Lonely Londoners is a literary work that is embraced globally and exists as a genre belonging to the literary period of postmodernism. It focuses on the ideas of migration, integration, and post colonialism. Also, it unveils the realities of immigrants in the post- war immigrant communities of the British capital. The author has written many books in which he mostly explores the experience of immigrants from different parts of the world. The novel is considered a world literature because it has been translated into major languages of the world and transcends the culture and civilization of its country of origin to showcase the events and practices in a different society.