A Happy English Colonial Family in 1950s London?: Immigration, Containment and Transgression in The Lonely Londoners

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The essay uses The Lonely Londoners by Samuel Selvon to investigate the experience of migration from the Caribbean to London in the 1950s. The argument centres on the hegemonic ideology of the ‘English Colonial Family’, both as a Commonwealth of Nations and as a domestic national family. Three forms of disorientation from this family are examined: disorientation based on racial prejudice, disorientation based upon the migrants’ outsider position within the colonial policing structures of the State and the media, and the disorientation of the characters’ excursions throughout London. The final section of the essay examines the migrant community's response as they negotiate places within London and within new forms of creative action.