The Ghost of Windrush Past: Intertextuality in Sam Selvon’s The Lonely Londoners (1956)

The relationships between the literary texts have recently occupied the center of debate and discovery in the literary sphere. With a so ancient a practice as intertextuality; influence, allusion and quotation seem to smolder the old assumptions about originality and creativity. Therefore, this paper attempts to explore the utilization of intertextuality in the novel entitled The Lonely Londoners (1956) by the Trinidadian postcolonial writer Sam Selvon (1923-1994). To do so, a survey on the provenance of intertextuality is displayed, with reference to its pioneers who claimed that the text is a heterogeneous combination of texts, namely Kristeva and Bakhtin. Additionally, the article introduces several models of the concept that are relevant to the analysis of the aforementioned novel along with a brief overview on the cultural and social parameters leading to its creation. This inquiry shows that The Lonely Londoners textually intertwines with a few works of the literary canon, biblical characters and eminent legal cases via some names of its characters, in addition to other direct quotations. As this paper submits, the audience should reach a rational stance on the use of intertextuality in the postcolonial novel to relate to universally shared images about racial prejudice and alienation.