An Interview with Caryl Phillips

Abstract

Phillips : The writers who were important to me initially were Black American writers. I think that's largely because Ralph Ellison's work was available in Penguin Modern Classics, and James Baldwin was an international figure. The fact that Lamming, Selvon and Harris actually existed was more important to me than what they were writing. The only works of their generation with which I had any real empathy were those which related to England, like The Emigrants, and The Lonely Londoners. Works which were rooted in the Caribbean meant nothmg to me. I felt much more in tune with the urban jungle that Ralph Ellison or Richard Wright would describe, because I lived in an urban jungle myself.