Salt
First edition cover
AuthorEarl Lovelace
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Subjectneocolonialism, racism, slavery[1]
GenreNovel
Set inTrinidad and Tobago, 1805 and 1956–1970[2]
PublisherFaber (UK)
Persea Books (US)[3]
Publication date
1996
Media typePrint: hardback duodecimo
Pages260
AwardsCommonwealth Writers' Prize
ISBN9780571192946
OCLC644935600
819.8
LC ClassPR9272.L6 S25
Preceded byThe Wine of Astonishment 
Followed byIs Just a Movie 

Salt is a 1996 novel by Trinidadian author Earl Lovelace.[4] It won the 1997 Commonwealth Writers' Prize.[5][6]

Plot

Alford George, son of a poor farm labourer on Trinidad, does not speak until the age of six, and grows up as an outsider; later he becomes a teacher and then a politician, and dreams of leaving his homeland for Great Britain.[7][8] His ancestor, Guinea John, led an 1805 slave rebellion and then apparently flew back to Africa; the other slaves had eaten too much salt and could not fly with him.[9][10]

Reception

In The Times, a reviewer said, "As to Lovelace's language, he is in a world of his own. It is a carnival of Creole sounds, and this is the deepest ideology of the novel, the display of the power of West Indian speech, the emancipation of the West Indian tongue from the shackles of the English sentence."[11]

The Publishers Weekly review noted: "Using language that's as lush as the foliage of Trinidad and dialogue as vivid as the Caribbean, Lovelace creates a parable that applies to any nation struggling with unresolved racial issues and to any people struggling to free themselves from their past."[12]

In 1997, Salt was awarded the Commonwealth Writers' Prize (Overall Winner, Best Book),[13] and was shortlisted for the 1998 International Dublin Literary Award.[14]

In 2022, Salt was included on the Big Jubilee Read, a list of 70 books by Commonwealth authors produced to celebrate Queen Elizabeth II's Platinum Jubilee. The official site said that Salt "is an extraordinary tour de force by one of the pre-eminent literary presences in the Caribbean, a work which explores like none before it the intermingling of cultures that is the contemporary West Indian experience. The novel blends historical and social detail with political didacticism, but never loses Lovelace's humour or his painterly boldness with language."[15][16]

References

  1. ↑ "Salt by Earl Lovelace 1996". 18 February 2015.
  2. ↑ Fehskens, Erin (2015). "Reading the Critical Pastoral in Lovelace's Salt and Roffey's White Woman on the Green Bicycle". Journal of West Indian Literature. 23 (1–2): 121–134 – via JSTOR.
  3. ↑ "Salt". Persea Books.
  4. ↑ Selph, Laura (2008). "The Teacher's Quest: Performance and Pedagogy in Earl Lovelace's "Salt"". Journal of West Indian Literature. 16 (2): 31–61. JSTOR 23019880 – via JSTOR.
  5. ↑ "Earl Lovelace | West Indian author | Britannica". www.britannica.com.
  6. ↑ Bucknor, Michael A.; Donnell, Alison (14 June 2011). The Routledge Companion to Anglophone Caribbean Literature. Routledge. ISBN 9781136821745 – via Google Books.
  7. ↑ Anim-Addo, Joan; Osborne, Deirdre; Sesay, Kadija (28 October 2021). This is the Canon: Decolonize Your Bookshelves in 50 Books. Quercus. ISBN 9781529414608 – via Google Books.
  8. ↑ "Earl Lovelace reads from Salt (1996)". University of Miami MediaSpace.
  9. ↑ Arnold, Albert James; Rodríguez-Luis, Julio; Dash, J. Michael (1 January 2001). A History of Literature in the Caribbean: English- and Dutch-speaking countries. John Benjamins Publishing. ISBN 9027234485 – via Google Books.
  10. ↑ Rice, Alan (30 April 2003). Radical Narratives of the Black Atlantic. A&C Black. ISBN 9780826456076 – via Google Books.
  11. ↑ "Salt". Wormhole Books. 23 April 2022.
  12. ↑ "Salt". Publishers Weekly. 3 March 1997. Retrieved 24 April 2022.
  13. ↑ "Commonwealth Writers' Prize Regional Winners 1987–2007" (PDF). Commonwealth Foundation. Archived from the original (PDF) on 23 October 2007.
  14. ↑ Thorpe, Vanessa (22 March 1998). "Books: Long overdue". The Independent.
  15. ↑ "The God of Small Things to Shuggie Bain: the Queen's jubilee book list". The Guardian. 18 April 2022.
  16. ↑ "BBC Arts - BBC Arts - The Big Jubilee Read: Books from 1992 to 2001". BBC.
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