Naipaul, V(idiadhar) S(urajprasad) (Vol. 4) | Naipaul, V(idiadhar) S(urajprasad) 1932–
Naipaul, V(idiadhar) S(urajprasad) 1932–
Naipaul, a novelist, short story writer, essayist, and author of travel books, was born in Trinidad and has lived in England since 1950. The winner of several important awards for his fiction, he writes with precision, confidence, and a fine wry humor. (See also Contemporary Authors, Vols. 1-4, rev. ed.)
A travel book by an author of little personality is likely to be plain dull; a travel book by an author with a pronounced personality (like Mr Naipaul) is likely to tell us more about the author than about the country. Heads, the country loses; tails, the author wins.
Mr Naipaul's earlier book on the West Indies hinted pretty strongly at its author's prickly, susceptible nature, the rawness of his nerves, his thinness of skin. In The Middle Passage it was the noise, especially in Trinidad, which most obviously tormented him. In An Area of Darkness it is the public defecation…....
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