Encouraged by his teacher, Frank Collymore – founder of the pioneering Caribbean literary magazine BIM – Lamming found the world of books and started to write.

Lamming left Barbados to work as a teacher from 1946 to 1950 in Port of Spain, Trinidad,[7] at El Colegio de Venezuela, a boarding school for boys.

His writings were published in the Barbadian magazine Bim, edited by his teacher Frank Collymore, and the BBC's Caribbean Voices radio series broadcast his poems and short prose.

It won a Somerset Maugham Award and was championed by eminent figures the like of Jean-Paul Sartre and Richard Wright,[10] the latter writing an introduction to the book's U.S.

"[14] He lived in England for more than a decade but, as Hillel Italie notes, "unlike Naipaul, who settled in London and at times wrote disdainfully of his origins, Lamming returned home and became a moral, political and intellectual force for a newly independent country seeking to tell its own story.

"[15] He entered academia in 1967 as a writer-in-residence and lecturer in the Creative Arts Centre and Department of Education at the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica (1967–68).

[5] Lamming wrote six novels: In the Castle of My Skin (1953), The Emigrants (1954), Of Age and Innocence (1958), Season of Adventure (1960), Water with Berries (1971), and Natives of My Person (1972).

[21] His second novel, The Emigrants, was a sequel to his debut autobiographical work, following the life of the same protagonist as he travels from Barbados to England in search of better prospects and opportunities.

[22][23] Of Age and Innocence (1958) and Season of Adventure (1960) take place on the fictional Caribbean island of San Cristobal, and 1972's Water with Berries "describes various flaws in West Indian society through the plot of Shakespeare's The Tempest.

"[25] Much of Lamming's work had gone out of print by the late 1970s, when Allison and Busby reissued several titles,[26] including his 1960 collection of essays, The Pleasures of Exile,[27] which attempts to define the place of the West Indian in the post-colonial world, re-interpreting Shakespeare's The Tempest and the characters of Prospero and Caliban in terms of personal identity and the history of the Caribbean.

In recognizing this son and ancestor, CARICOM is applauding intellectual energy, constancy of vision, and an unswerving dedication to the ideals of freedom and sovereignty.

[40][41][42] In a statement issued on the day of his death, Prime Minister Mottley described him as a national icon and as "the quintessential Bajan", saying: "Wherever George Lamming went, he epitomised that voice and spirit that screamed Barbados and the Caribbean.