“The Blasted Man Made Me Vex”: Artistic Vulnerability, Satire, and Caribbean Literary Historiography

During the Caribbean Writers’ Conference, organized by the Commonwealth Institute in London in 1986, a jarring incident left a lasting impact on the Trinidadian writer Sam Selvon and sparked a wave of introspection within the Caribbean literary community. As Selvon stood before a captivated audience, passionately reading a passage from his 1975 novel, Moses Ascending, he was unexpectedly subjected to a public assault by a Black Guyanese woman who injected a moment of spectacle into what was a celebration of Caribbean literature. In the aftermath of this incident, several conference participants felt compelled to shed light on the assault’s significance, among them the Barbadian Canadian writer Austin Clarke and Susheila Nasta, a scholar of Selvon’s works. Both emerged as prominent voices in recounting the event by expressing unequivocal condemnation for the incident, while delving into the profound impact it had on Selvon personally and professionally and the broader implications for Caribbean cultural production. While many critical evaluations of Selvon’s life and writing often overlook the incident,¹ it is essential for us to acknowledge and examine this moment, as well as the commentary provided by Clarke, Nasta, and Selvon himself in the aftermath. These perspectives serve as significant reference points in discussions concerning racist and misogynistic satire, freedom of expression, and performance within the historiography of Caribbean literature. This incident acts as a catalyst for reflecting on and reassessing the dynamics between writers and readers, the impact of personal attacks on artistic pursuits, and the treatment of Black women artists by male writers in the region during the late twentieth century.

This essay begins with Austin Clarke’s account of the incident in his memoir, A Passage Back Home: A Personal Reminiscence of Samuel Selvon, paying particular attention to his depiction of the event and his characterization of the assailant. Subsequently, I explore Susheila Nasta’s assessment of the incident, which appears as an afterword to a 1991 preface to the publication of the American edition of Moses Migrating. This afterword posits, in alignment with Kris Singh’s interpretation of the assault, that it stemmed from a fundamental misinterpretation of Selvon’s work, specifically a failure to recognize its “subversive and satirical” elements (128). Examining critical perspectives on satire and Selvon’s own satirical response to the incident, this analysis aims to explore the role of anti-racist and postcolonial satire in Selvon’s writing. I argue that satire exposes vulnerabilities for both the author and the reader, potentially leading to misunderstandings and violence. By shedding light on the inherent vulnerabilities and consequences associated with satire, this paper critically examines the complexities of artistic expression and underscores the responsibilities of both authors and readers in pursuing cultural expression and meaningful dialogue. I offer an orientation towards Caribbean literary historiography that extends beyond institutional narratives, encompassing accounts of friendship, community, and intimacy. I argue that paying attention to errant and fugitive forms of sociality, informal discourses, and commentary produced at the margins of events can be useful in tracing the affective histories of Caribbean literary culture. This approach can “reveal layers of lived experience and thus embedded affect that are otherwise occluded from view,” as “their content at times goes against the grain of official ideology and thus must be uttered in private or in semiautonomous collectivities” (Derby 132). While the sources consulted in this essay are not private, they focus on transgressions in the storyteller/audience relationship in Caribbean literary and oral cultures—transgressions that some would obscure, keep at the margins, or not publicize too widely. These commentaries of controversy, which simultaneously enact controversy within a limited public, are made visible and negotiated through paratextual and extratextual sources and are worth attending to.

In A Passage Back Home, Clarke reflects on his friendship with Selvon and expresses his deep admiration for Selvon’s distinctive creative style, characterized by his use of creole language and realism, as well as his efforts to internationalize West Indian literature. Clarke, a Barbadian writer who immigrated to Canada in 1955, begins his reminiscence of Selvon by recounting his listening to the Caribbean Voices programme on the BBC and hearing Selvon’s voice. In Selvon, a young Clarke in colonial Barbados recognized in his words, “the disabusing of our minds from the position we had been schooled in: that we had no culture; that we had no models from amongst us, all this was vouchsafed in the language of Samuel Selvon” (16). As he began his own writing career in Canada, Clarke would come to see Selvon as a “literary model, a literary companion and travelling companion, and as friend” (16). The relationship between Clarke and Selvon, as evidenced by both A Passage Back Home and their exchanged letters—some of which are exhibited in the memoir—can be characterized by the affective affiliations and friendships sought by both writers to better navigate social, political, and economic life in the diaspora. Towards the end of the memoir, Clarke recounts the incident at the Commonwealth Institute, framing his description of the events and their aftermath by emphasizing the significance of Selvon’s presence and participation. Clarke highlights that Selvon, now living in Canada,² eagerly anticipated his return to London, intending to reconnect with old acquaintances and revive friendships strained by the physical distance between Calgary and London. Conscious of the shift in tone that will accompany his account of Selvon’s assault, Clarke feels compelled to affirm the genuine excitement they both shared in anticipation of their visit to London. He recalls the countless occasions they had met, participating in joint readings and attending conferences, emphasizing their enjoyable experiences together (115). Further foreshadowing the effect of the incident would have on Selvon, Clarke writes:

This statement by Clarke is ironic on several levels. First, it is ironic because it foreshadows the incident that Clarke later describes at the Commonwealth Institute, which compelled Selvon to merge the intellectual foundations of his work with a deeper, more personal understanding of his character. Here, the combination of intellectual and emotional comprehension of his writing led him to reflect on how his work was received. As a result, he would later use his writing to publicly address a disagreement regarding the interpretation of his work, which I will address shortly. Second, it is ironic because while Clarke attempts to position himself and Selvon as aligned with the “comma-man,” he paradoxically undermines this assertion by affirming that Selvon possessed a deep comprehension of his own value and position in Caribbean literature.

While Austin Clarke offers one of the most detailed accounts of Selvon’s assault, it is important to note that he is an unreliable narrator of the actual assault itself. Clarke did not witness the incident first-hand; instead, he provides a spectacularized description based on conversations he had with other conference participants who were present and willing to provide him with details. These conversations occurred at a bar where many West Indians gathered after the reading. Before evaluating Clarke’s portrayal of the assault, it is crucial to take a moment to analyze the significance of spaces like the bar, which, following Homi Bhabha, can be considered a “Third Space” where Caribbean literary historiography is informally shaped. “Third Space” is conceptualized as a space of cultural hybridity and negotiation that exists outside of fixed binaries and allows for the emergence of new ideas and cultural expressions. I characterize the bar as a “Third Space” in Caribbean literary historiography to suggest that the bar is not only a physical location but also a symbolic space where Caribbean literary history is informally shaped through the conversations Clarke engages in with other writers from the Caribbean. It signifies a space where witnesses to the assault on Selvon contribute to the formation of a distinct literary history that is then formally relayed through Clarke in his recollections.³ The bar itself is significant in the oeuvre of both Clarke and Selvon. I have previously argued that the rum bar in Clarke’s novels and short stories represents a site of “public homosociality” wherein masculinities within the Caribbean diaspora are negotiated (176). Similarly, scholars like Alison Donnell have interpreted the bar in Selvon’s work, through Paul Gilroy’s idea of “conviviality” in Postcolonial Melancholia (2005) as “the processes of cohabitation and interaction that have made multiculture an ordinary feature of social life…in postcolonial cities elsewhere” (qtd. in Donnell 55). Donnell contends that the “lively, textured and boisterous collectivities of basements, bars and buses in Selvon’s works present a nascent conviviality where the dramas around difference are always located, and often diffused, within the everydayness of shared spaces, entangled lives and dynamic communities” (55). Indeed, the bar, functioning as a site for intimate yet public discourse, should inform our understanding of it as a space through which informal literary historiographies are shaped by networks of “affective affiliations” and literary friendship.⁴

Clarke’s choice of language in his account of the incident positions Selvon as “the star” and “the master of language” who captivates his audience. He describes the scene:

While Clarke’s portrayal of the woman’s presence as “something nasty” and his depiction of the reading with religious connotations as having “sanctity” are problematic and biased, the details he presents are supported by Susheila Nasta, who offers a less subjective description. Nasta confirms that Selvon was indeed slapped across the face by a Black Guyanese woman who approached him on stage during his reading. It is essential to acknowledge that Clarke’s narrative, while descriptive, is influenced by his own biases and contains misogynistic elements. He diminishes the assailant by reducing her to her chosen art form, condescendingly referring to her as “Dancer”.

Clarke delves into speculation about the motives behind the assault, mentioning that he had met her before in Guyana when she was married to a Cabinet Minister in the government of the country’s first Prime Minister, Forbes Burnham. According to Clarke, their relationship soured, leading to divorce and personal turmoil. He describes her current circumstances, portraying her as a struggling artist facing financial hardships and attempting to recapture her past glory through dance. Though Clarke attempts to show empathy, his language and descriptions remain condescending and objectifying, writing that her ex-husband “had suffered long enough at her artistic hands, and legs” (119). Clarke uses grotesque language to describe the woman’s behaviour, referring to her performance as a “giant bird of some kind” (125). Although Clarke and the woman did not discuss the meaning of her dance, they discussed the challenges of recognition, financial struggles, and the marginalization of West Indian talent by the English establishment. Clarke’s overall misogynistic tone, however, overshadows this fleeting recognition of the precarious position of Caribbean women artists.

Characterizations of Clarke’s writing as misogynistic are not new. Stella Algoo-Baksh’s biography Austin C. Clarke (1994), argues that “Taken outside the context of his corpus, Clarke’s derogatory and opprobrious depiction of women and of the dangers they represent to men may well tempt the reader to see him as a misogynist” (162).⁵ As Clarke interacts with the woman and listens to her side of the story, he positions himself as a potential victim of her violence, complaining about her potentially assaulting him: “I was going into this unknown jungle with this woman, and surrendering my body to her unswerving anger about ‘black men who write all this shit about white women’” (126). He reveals her reasoning for attacking Selvon, claiming that she despised Black men publicly discussing white women and their bodies, particularly in front of white audiences.⁶ In conversation with Clarke, she explains, “I just hate these damn black men getting up in public and talking about white ‘omen, and white ‘omen pussies” (127). She clarifies she did not dislike Selvon and considered him a friend but was distressed by what he represented and that “the blasted man made [her] vex” (129). While the woman expresses her upset with Selvon’s comments about white women, Clarke writes that Selvon’s reading was actually concerned with Black women. Corroboratively, Susheila Nasta—a British scholar of Caribbean literatures, founding editor of Wasafiri, and literary executor for Selvon’s estate—also identifies the passage that Selvon read as being satirical about Black women, not white women. Regardless of the reasons behind the slippages and misinterpretations, Clarke’s assessment of the woman reflects a lack of understanding and empathy towards the precarious position of Caribbean women artists, and that Selvon’s satirical reading was deeply offensive to this woman. This is significant, given that a major part of the conference’s purpose was to honour the Jamaican poet Lorna Goodison, who was awarded the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for the Americas. This event marked an important milestone in the institutional recognition of Caribbean women writers. Given the misogyny in his account, rather than accepting Clarke’s reportage at face value as providing an authoritative assessment of the woman’s motive, it is essential to examine Nasta’s account and her foregrounding of the role of satire as an instigating factor in the assault.

Nasta’s addressing of the incident is featured in a Special Issue of Kunapipi published in 1995, which she edited as a tribute to Selvon’s work and life, commemorating the first anniversary of his passing. Her comments come as an afterword to a reprint of “A Special Preface by Moses Aloetta,” written by Selvon for the occasion of the American edition of Moses Migrating.⁷ Susheila Nasta asserts that her intention behind writing this afterword was twofold: first, to clarify a misconception that the quoted passage originated from The Lonely Londoners as mistakenly suggested by many, when in fact it was from Moses Ascending. Second, she aims to articulate its impact on both the writers present and on Selvon himself. According to Nasta, in the wake of the event Selvon questioned “whether his work could still be read in such a climate and he prevented [her] from publishing an article in the national press on the subject preferring to not make a stir” (129). The mention of “climate” holds significant importance, as two years after Selvon’s assault, a more intensely violent climate emerged as attacks on writers and free speech during the Satanic Verses controversy. This controversy triggered a broader debate about censorship and religious violence. It resulted in numerous murders and attempted murders, including against Rushdie himself, who has unfortunately continued to face such violence in recent years. Clarke’s account similarly depicts the profound effect the incident had on Selvon, noting that “Sam never recovered from this assault. He took no action. That was not his disposition… His letters to me, upon our return to Canada, gradually decreased in length, in humor, and in regularity. I wrote to him more often during these months than he wrote back to me” (124). After the incident, Selvon embarked on a tour of the Caribbean, repeatedly reciting the piece that had caused the controversy. One might question why Selvon, who had experienced a public moment of vulnerability because of his writing, would choose to read the passage repeatedly. It is possible that Selvon’s perception was that the assault was not a result of the content of what he had read, but in the context surrounding it. In England, where Black power and second-wave feminism were gaining significant momentum, he may have felt more vulnerable.⁸ Selvon might have believed that such a response would not be possible in the Caribbean or that it would be easier to bear such an assault among a community of fellow Caribbean people rather than in front of a racially mixed audience.

What I find most compelling in Nasta’s account is that she suggests that perhaps in the Caribbean, there would be a better understanding of the passage’s satirical tone, making such a response less likely. She writes that whilst the passage that Selvon read from “clearly pokes fun at black women it has to be seen in the context of the novel as a whole which is utterly subversive and satirical and targets everyone” (128). The woman who, according to Nasta’s representation, seemingly took offence to Selvon’s reading⁹ did not subscribe to this understanding of Selvon’s writing as employing misogynistic stereotypes ironically for social commentary and critique. Satire inherently carries risks and vulnerabilities for both the writer who employs it and the audience who must choose to perceive it as satire rather than a straightforward exposition. Greenberg writes that “satire’s purpose is to exercise moral judgment [and] urges the reader or viewer to participate in the censure” (13). In Selvon’s work, the judgment and censure can be interpreted as a critique of the eponymous protagonist in Moses Ascending, whose disillusionment with Black Power movements and social change alienated him from himself and those around him. According to Kenneth Ramchand, the protagonist, Moses, undergoes a shift from our first encounter with him in The Lonely Londoners, where he appears as a figure “seeking answers to profound questions with an intensity that suggests a closeness to the author.” However, in the latter books, there is a noticeable disengagement by the author from his protagonist, which “feels like cynicism or evasion” (qtd. in Kunzru xv).

Moses’ cynicism and misogyny then signal a reflection of changing social milieus in which West Indian immigrants, already grappling with the mediation of their identities by British social life, become more uncertain about their standing in a society undergoing transformation. While Ramchand reads Moses in Moses Ascending as a departure from a self-identification between Selvon and his protagonist, Kunzru notes, regarding Selvon’s 1979 speech titled “Three into One Can’t Go: East Indian, Trinidadian, Westindian,” that:

When a Black protagonist expresses anti-Black sentiments through his refusal to rent to Black people and his desire to live in an area without “too many Black people around,” (3) how does this portrayal by an Indo-Trinidadian author expressing misgivings about Black nationalism impact the interpretation of the satire?¹⁰ If, as Kunzru argues, the text makes for “uncomfortable reading” despite its “lyrical satirical prose,” (xvi) is it a case that the satire has not been effective enough? Or does the effectiveness of satire hinge on its ability to make an audience uncomfortable, prompting reflection on the satirized issue and invoking their own value systems as a corrective to protest social ills? Takahiro Seto argues that “one can argue that the success of satire ultimately depends on the reader, not on the text” (10). However, it is crucial to acknowledge that the burden of recognizing irony and satirical content cannot rest solely on the reader, in this case, the woman, but also requires some emphasis on the text or context. The text, as I have suggested, is ambiguous in its satirical tone, influenced by the context of Selvon’s own ambiguous racial and gender politics. As Linda Hutcheon writes, “there are often both contextual signals and specific textual markers that work to lead the interpreter to recognize or to attribute (but either way, to intend) irony” (136). Therefore, one must question whether Selvon had a responsibility to his audience to provide clearer signals of his use of irony and satire, and to distance himself from the persona of Moses. This question, of course, raises further questions: to what extent do authors need to make these moves to protect themselves from vulnerable positioning through the audience’s response? Does a writer have a responsibility to the politics of their audience, lest they be subjected to assault? And to what degree is artistic freedom in the Caribbean always in dialogue with polyvocal intersectional histories often perceived as being in tension or needing an unambiguous stance? These questions require more space than this essay allows for thorough consideration. Still, the potential responses to them can shape how we understand the function of creative practice in the region and its diaspora.

In a move that signals a defence of his use of satire, Selvon’s preface to Moses Migrating, for which Susheila Nasta provides the afterword, uses satire itself to address the controversy. This is the first and last time that Selvon addressed it in print. The preface, written in the voice of Selvon’s iconoclastic recurring character, Moses—a move that further nuances my earlier questioning of the effectiveness of satire in a context wherein the distinction between author and the protagonist may not be clear to readers—begins by addressing the assault:

Kris Singh notes that “this preface frequently slips into Selvon’s point of view or into an ambiguous perspective that cannot be easily pinned down. The narrator, supposedly Moses, addresses the assault as if it happened to him” (254). In the passage, Selvon conveys a sense of vulnerability, highlighting an emotional response to the incident and their consideration of the racial dynamics at play during the assault. Singh argues that “the reference to the presence of white people is also aligned with Moses’ desperate need to please that dominant group. However, Selvon’s typical sarcastic tone undercuts the speaker’s self-presentation” as he “mocks Moses’ self-consciousness in the presence of white people in order to reveal how Moses has been molded by white supremacy” (254). The characterization of the assailant as “a black Guyanese bitch” presents a complex interpretive challenge. On one hand, it can be seen as an expression of Selvon’s anger being unleashed in a misogynistic manner, revealing his frustration, and possibly reflecting his own biases. It is possible to interpret this choice of language as a satirical exaggeration, wherein Selvon employs misogynistic diction to highlight the absurdity or spectacle of the incident itself. Put differently, “Selvon mocks Moses’ macho bravado in trying to dismiss the woman as a ‘bitch’ whose subjectivity and actions are irrelevant” (Singh 254). This reading aligns with the idea that Selvon may employ satire to underscore the exaggerated nature of the incident and its subsequent portrayal, rather than simply expressing genuine misogyny. As a reader, however, I find it difficult to make the same interpretive move as Singh, as I require more evidence to attest to Selvon’s motives. Even if Selvon’s work is satirical and aims to mock Moses’ bravado, it prompts the question of whether satire effectively corrects its own dangers. This is a question to which my response remains ever-changing and nuanced, influenced by ongoing reflections and mutable perspectives.

Selvon engages in intellectual reflection in this 1991 preface, a departure from the type of intellectualizing that Clarke previously suggested neither he nor Selvon were particularly invested in. However, following his assault two years prior, Selvon felt compelled to engage in this kind of reflection. He explains that mimicry, irony, and satire are central to the character of Moses. In a defensive tone, Selvon almost seeks to justify his aesthetic pursuits. He asserts that his conscious aim as an author was to maintain a thread of authentic commentary on the challenges faced by those in the Caribbean diaspora. He argues that Selvon’s use of satire reflects his dedication to offering genuine and insightful observations about Caribbean individuals navigating life outside their original cultural context. He emphasizes the importance of capturing and conveying their experiences and resilience through his writing, acknowledging the precariousness of their lives and the role humour plays as a coping mechanism. It is crucial to note that this does not excuse misogynistic humour, but emphasizes the need for careful consideration of context, as Selvon invites readers to do. Selvon suggests that in contexts of precarity, moralizing may not be as effective as understanding how humour becomes a mechanism for coping with the challenges faced by marginalized individuals. He concludes the preface, asserting that “the humour and entertainment that Moses provides sometimes tend to overwhelm the serious side of his nature. It is a knack that all Black people acquire to survive…. So laugh your guts out. But remember there is more in the mortar than the pestle” (128). Indeed, Selvon suggests that the humour present in his work is not to be taken solely at face value. Instead, it should be read as a sign of something deeper within the socio-psychological fabric of the characters being represented.

Nasta confirms that the woman who assaulted Selvon apologized to him afterward. However, despite the apology, it is clear from the accounts that Selvon was scarred by the incident and would never be the same.¹¹ It is important to consider the impact on the woman as well, as she may have also faced difficulties recovering from the incident. Like Singh, I am not interested in, nor ethically motivated to, overwrite the woman’s experience, especially as the accounts of her motive “are not readily known” as her agency and voice is never fully available as it was heavily mediated by Clarke’s “overt desire to preserve a particular image of Selvon” (254). Acknowledging the limited archives available on this incident, much of this paper revolves around a close reading of Clarke’s voice, which I argue is the most compromised yet the most extensive extant account. Turning to these archives, despite their overdetermined subjectivity, potential alternate agendas, silences, and hearsay—elements Lauren Derby suggests “offer a window into the everyday registers of discordant affect and ‘microscopic fragments of emotion’” (140)—is to engage in an act of literary microhistory. This approach operates under the hypothesis that the smallest, strangest, and most subjective details can represent a wider totality and reveal challenges, questions, sites of knowledge, and opportunities for reflection that underpin and/or emerge from the structures of feeling, ethics, and responsibilities of participants in Caribbean literary culture.

While I am sympathetic to the argument that Selvon’s freedom to use satire in his writing was justified and that the assault resulted from a misinterpretation, I still believe that in a region where our vulnerabilities and precariousness are deeply ingrained, we need to exercise greater care in our personal relationships and artistic endeavours. This is essential to fully realize the decolonial project in which we are collectively invested and implicated. This work involves navigating the complexities of our experiences, recognizing the potential for harm and misunderstandings, and striving for more compassionate and respectful interactions as we move “towards a future lit by a brighter sun—a future Sam Selvon helped to imagine” (Kenzru xvii). It is a call to uphold our shared investment in decolonization while being mindful of the impact of our actions on others. Acknowledging the problematic and painful truths that surround us, it becomes crucial to consider what Lorna Goodison, who is mentioned at the periphery of Clarke’s account and the conference itself, reminds us towards in her poem “Last Words” from her latest collection Mother Muse which laments and praises another ‘Dancer’ who was subjected to misogynistic spectacle, the Jamaican Anita “Margarita” Mahfood:¹²