Ways Of Sunlight Pdf Free Download

Open Preview

See a Problem?

We'd love your help. Let us know what's wrong with this preview of Ways of Sunlight by Sam Selvon.

Thanks for telling us about the problem.

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Community Reviews

· 216 ratings · 16 reviews

Start your review of Ways of Sunlight

Oct 17, 2018 Cecly rated it it was amazing

This is another classic of Trinidad literature. Selvon is all embracing in his narrative. Quinessential Trinidadian.

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Ways of Sunlight" by Samuel Selvon was one of the first Caribbean books I read in secondary school. I remember we also read books set in Britain or the United States and while they were good, there is an intrinsic connection with a book set in the Caribbean, with Caribbean characters and written by a Caribbean author.

So when I picked up my old copy of "Ways of Sunlight" and dusted it off after almost 20 years, I found that the characters and settings were most vivid in my mind. Reading Selvon's

Ways of Sunlight" by Samuel Selvon was one of the first Caribbean books I read in secondary school. I remember we also read books set in Britain or the United States and while they were good, there is an intrinsic connection with a book set in the Caribbean, with Caribbean characters and written by a Caribbean author.

So when I picked up my old copy of "Ways of Sunlight" and dusted it off after almost 20 years, I found that the characters and settings were most vivid in my mind. Reading Selvon's ballads was indeed as effortless as following the melody of a calypso. For the first part, set in Trinidad, I felt like I was listening to the older people speak about "long time". When older people start a sentence with "long time" or "long ago", you know that you're entering a different realm. Who knew that some of the most built-up areas that we live in today were once cocoa or sugar estates? The second part, set in London, reminded me of how West Indians would get together for a lime whether in a bar or with family and narrate the greatest of misfortunes to make them seem like the funniest of stories.

The story that stood out in my mind the most was "Down the Main" which followed Frederick as he went to Venezuela in search for work because after the war, times were very difficult. He was smuggled into the oil-rich Venezuela and ended up in a village that was on the banks of the Orinoco River. When he got there, he was put into contact with a Trinidadian who arranged to have documents his falsified. Doesn't that remind us of a similar situation? I wonder how many of us share a similar link to Venezuela.

...more

A classic in my view, in depth and creative use of colloquial language and Trinidad culture. I've read this book of short stories since 1982 and have done so over and over. As I've gotten older and reading again, its amazing how I'm seeing it with fresh insight. Thanks Mr. Selvon RIP. A classic in my view, in depth and creative use of colloquial language and Trinidad culture. I've read this book of short stories since 1982 and have done so over and over. As I've gotten older and reading again, its amazing how I'm seeing it with fresh insight. Thanks Mr. Selvon RIP. ...more

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Good one love it

I want to go to Trinidad, sounds fun

Great collection. Sad, funny and so familiar, like stories you hear when relatives get together and talk way into the night.

Jan 03, 2015 K. rated it it was amazing

This is an exquisite, in-depth collection of Trinidad and Tobago's cultural values. I immensely enjoyed the rich detail of landscape and rituals described. The narrative was bittersweet and poignant at times. This collection is a perfect example for understanding British colonization, and how the People of Trinidad and Tobago must cope or resist the pervasive Western homogenization and infringement on their land and occupations. Truly, reading novels is a one-way-ticket to traveling. This is an exquisite, in-depth collection of Trinidad and Tobago's cultural values. I immensely enjoyed the rich detail of landscape and rituals described. The narrative was bittersweet and poignant at times. This collection is a perfect example for understanding British colonization, and how the People of Trinidad and Tobago must cope or resist the pervasive Western homogenization and infringement on their land and occupations. Truly, reading novels is a one-way-ticket to traveling. ...more

Mar 28, 2013 Adanna rated it really liked it

This was an enjoyable read! My favourite stories are: Johnson and the Cascadura, Cane is Bitter, The Village Washer, Gussy and the Boss, A Drink of Water, Eraser's Dilemma, Brackley and the Bed, If Winter Comes and The Cricket Match. Each contained characters that made you smile, hurt when they hurt, roll on the floor laughing with their antics and logic. The stories themselves had heart, intrigue, moral dilemmas, lessons etc, making this group of short stories a good read for anyone. This was an enjoyable read! My favourite stories are: Johnson and the Cascadura, Cane is Bitter, The Village Washer, Gussy and the Boss, A Drink of Water, Eraser's Dilemma, Brackley and the Bed, If Winter Comes and The Cricket Match. Each contained characters that made you smile, hurt when they hurt, roll on the floor laughing with their antics and logic. The stories themselves had heart, intrigue, moral dilemmas, lessons etc, making this group of short stories a good read for anyone. ...more

This collection of short stories highlight the pyschological and intellectual connection with the Caribbean that exiled writers in London felt and feel: these are ballads which capture the essence of the Trini male marooned in the metropole.

the book is a nice book to read for the child them to read and no how it was like went it was in the 1988

A wonderful rural village tale

Samuel Dickson Selvon was born in San Fernando in the south of Trinidad. His parents were East Indian: his father was a first-generation Christian immigrant from Madras and his mother's father was Scottish.He was educated at Naparima College, San Fernando, before leaving at the age of fifteen to work. He was a wireless operator with the Royal Naval Reserve from 1940 to 1945. Thereafter, he moved n Samuel Dickson Selvon was born in San Fernando in the south of Trinidad. His parents were East Indian: his father was a first-generation Christian immigrant from Madras and his mother's father was Scottish.He was educated at Naparima College, San Fernando, before leaving at the age of fifteen to work. He was a wireless operator with the Royal Naval Reserve from 1940 to 1945. Thereafter, he moved north to Port of Spain, and from 1945 to 1950, worked for the Trinidad Guardian as a reporter and for a time on its literary page. In this period, he began writing stories and descriptive pieces, mostly under a variety of pseudonyms such as Michael Wentworth, Esses, Ack-Ack, and Big Buffer. Selvon moved to London in the 1950s, and then in the late 1970s to Alberta, Canada, where he lived until his death from a heart attack on 16 April 1994 on a return trip to Trinidad.

Selvon is known for novels such as The Lonely Londoners (1956) and Moses Ascending (1975). His novel A Brighter Sun (1952), detailing the construction of the Churchill-Roosevelt Highway in Trinidad through the eyes of young Indian worker Tiger, was a popular choice on the CXC English Literature syllabus for many years. Other notable works include Ways of Sunlight (1957), Turn Again Tiger (1958) and Those Who Eat the Cascadura (1972). During the 1970s and early 1980s, Selvon converted several of his novels and stories into radio scripts, broadcast by the BBC, which were collected in Eldorado West One (Peepal Tree Press, 1988) and Highway in the Sun (Peepal Tree Press, 1991).

After moving to Canada, Selvon found a job teaching creative writing as a visiting professor at the University of Victoria. When that job ended, he took a job as a janitor at the University of Calgary in Alberta for a few months, before becoming writer-in-residence there. He was largely ignored by the Canadian literary establishment, with his works receiving no reviews during his residency.

The Lonely Londoners, as with most of his later work, focuses on the immigration of West Indians to Britain in the 1950s and tells, mostly in anecdotal form, the daily experience of settlers from the Caribbean. Selvon also illustrates the panoply of different "cities" that are lived in London, as with any major city, due to class and racial boundaries. In many ways, his books are the precursors to works such as Some Kind of Black by Diran Adebayo, White Teeth by Zadie Smith and The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi. Selvon explained: "When I wrote the novel that became The Lonely Londoners, I tried to recapture a certain quality in West Indian everyday life. I had in store a number of wonderful anecdotes and could put them into focus, but I had difficulty starting the novel in straight English. The people I wanted to describe were entertaining people indeed, but I could not really move. At that stage, I had written the narrative in English and most of the dialogues in dialect. Then I started both narrative and dialogue in dialect and the novel just shot along."

Selvon's papers are now at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas, Austin, USA. These consist of holograph manuscripts, typescripts, book proofs, manuscript notebooks, and correspondence. Drafts for six of his eleven novels are present, along with supporting correspondence and items relating to his career.

...more