![]() ![]() For this reason, Mittelholzer's autobiography, A Swarthy Boy, published in 1963, has seldom been the object of separate study but has often been used as a reference in the criticism of his fiction. As a matter of fact, the author’s personal obsessions, his multifarious interests and his unconventional ideas on life overbearingly emerge throughout the whole of his literary production. The peculiarity of Mittelholzer’s literary work lies, above all, in its particular closeness to biography. In spite of this, much of his rich production has frequently been interpreted as «the work of a novelist manqué» (GILKES 1979: 95) for its insistence on sensational and morbid aspects. His novels, moreover, anticipate the main themes and concerns typical of post-1950 West Indian literature: the question of identity, the problem of ethnic and cultural admixture, the sense of rootlessness. Many, however, recognise his pioneering role in Caribbean literature as he was one of the first of his generation to emigrate to England in order to have his work published. The name of Edgar Mittelholzer (1909-1965) is still quite unknown outside the area of Anglo-Caribbean literary studies. A matter of colour: Edgar Mittelholzer’s A Swarthy Boy ![]()
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