"[about the kind of English he used in his novels] it seemed to me that the only way to give expression to what happened to the original immigrant was by using this idiom, this language form that he brought with him. There was no other way. I tried to write The Lonely Londoners in Standard English and it just would not work, and when I got into the Trinidad way of speaking the whole thing seemed to flow so easily and everything seemed to come to life. This idiom is so much a part of the people, so much a part of the characteristics of the people, that you cannot separate a language from the experiences."