A Brighter Sun (Masterplots II: African American Literature Series)
At a glance:
- Author: Samuel Selvon
- First Published: 1952
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Social realism
- Time of Work: During World War II
- Setting: Barataria, a village east of Port of Spain, Trinidad
- Principal Characters: Tiger, Urmilla, Joe Martin, Rita, Sookdeo, Boysie
- Genres: Long fiction, Social realism, Bildungsroman
- Subjects: Maturation or coming of age, Culture, Self-discovery, Politics, Blacks, Race, 1940’s, Villages, 1930’s, Asia or Asians, Creoles
- Locales: Port-of-Spain, Trinidad
The Novel
Because A Brighter Sun opens with a catalog of events, both local and international (and repeats this device subsequently), it might be approached as a quasihistorical narrative; however, this technique places the characters, their actions, and aspirations in social perspective, counterpointing major and minor happenings and emphasizing the concerns of the ordinary struggling individual. World events are distant; local and personal concerns dominate the characters’ lives.
The arrangement of the novel into twelve chapters suggests the form of the epic,...
[The entire page is 2971 words long]
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