The Housing Lark

A unique and wonderful novel, comic and serious, cynical and tender-hearted … With its surprisingly happy ending and irreverent, spirited wit, The Housing Lark goes against the grain of much postcolonial literature … Funny, serious, innovative, multilingual, musical, The Housing Lark shows how literary expression can create community across race, gender, place, and time – Dohra AhmadSelvon’s meticulously observed narratives of displaced Londoners’ lives created a template for how to write about migrant, and postmigrant, London for countless writers who have followed in his wake, including Hanif Kureishi and Zadie Smith … The Housing Lark is a a fine, and unfairly neglected, companion novel to The Lonely Londoners – Caryl PhillipsA vibrant comic classic … perfectly observed * Observer *The Housing Lark is both spry and strikingly resonant … Ultimately, as much as its lovable characters and its caper-strewn quest, what makes The Housing Lark so special are the music and melodies of Selvon’s prose. * Guardian *Sam Selvon is known for The Lonely Londoners. But it is The Housing Lark in which his brilliance truly shines.Funny, subversive and lyrical … Selvon’s garrulous comically-gifted narrator feels like a friend, spinning surreal yet familiar tales in a late-night drinking den. Yet his stories have a sharp edge. The dark side of the Windrush experience lurks between the laughs and this deeply enjoyable book hides serious literary intent.

Sam Selvon was born in San Fernando (Trinidad) in 1923 and worked in his homeland as a wireless operator and reporter. In 1950 he left Trinidad for the UK, where he established himself as a writer with A Brighter Sun (1952). Many other books followed, including his best-known novel, The Lonely Londoners (1956), and its two sequels, Moses Ascending (1975) and Moses Migrating (1983). He moved to Canada in the late 1970s and died in 1994.

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