Nicholas Laughlin

Excellent anthology, varied and interesting and in the end with a reasonable thematic thread. I personally found it to be rather Caribbean-heavy. I understand that likely reflects the Press and what submissions they got, and there isn't a story I would cut, there are just, well, so many islands that rarely see representation. I keep wondering what #18 and #19 were, what other stories we could hear.

C.L.R. James (1901-1989) was a famous historian, Marxist, and postcolonial theorist, as well as an avid cricket enthusiast. He was born and educated in Trinidad, and worked as a teacher, journalist, and writer. He traveled to England in 1932 on the request of a good friend, the Trinidadian cricketeer Learie Constantine, and initially spent several weeks living in Bloomsbury in London. He wrote nine essays for the Port of Spain Guardian about his visit to the capital; seven of these essays show more are contained in Letters from London.

James has a classical English education and a great love of literature, and he fits in with Bloomsbury life "as naturally as a pencil fits into a sharpener." He is befriended by English, Indian and West Indian students, intellectuals and writers, including the poet Edith Sitwell, and he fondly describes these meetings in two of the essays. Other pieces describe his visits to the Victoria and Albert and the Science Museums, the Bohemian life of those who live in Bloomsbury, the cramped yet cozy living conditions of his rooming house, and his interactions with the young, educated, independent and open-minded London women that he meets. The essays provide a vivid insight into Bloomsbury life and 1930s London, and this book was a quick and pleasurable read. show less