From Library Journal
Naipaul started his literary career writing comic novels set in Trinidad. Then he progressed to probing travel narratives. Recently, he published correspondence with his family (Between Father and Son: Family Letters, LJ 1/00). This slim volume, which contains two essays that originally appeared in 1999 in the New York Review of Books, traces his evolution as a writer. In the first essay, he reflects on the various literary influences and circumstances that shaped his career. In the second, he ruminates on what prevented him from writing a novel set in India, the land of his forebears. When he argues that "fiction works best in a confined moral and cultural area where the rules are generally known," Naipaul suggests that the heyday of the novel is long past. Naipaul writes with clarity, and his arguments are persuasive; one wishes that he had expanded further on his literary theories. Recommended for comprehensive collections of Naipaul's writings.DRavi Shenoy, North Central Coll. Lib., Naperville, IL Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.


Book Description
In this essay of literary autobiography, V.S. Naipaul sifts through memories of his childhood in Trinidad, his university days in Oxford, and his struggles as a young, poor and inexperienced writer in London. He describes his responses to his family's native India, particularly his horror at the poverty and misery that he encountered on his first visit. He modestly reflects on the different possibilities that he found in the novel and the travel book for capturing the truth of his subjects and considers what makes a work piece of literature. He offers us a remarkably vivid account of the experiences and literature that shaped his imagination and allowed him to make his childhood fantasy of becoming a writer of fiction a reality.


About the Author
Born and educated in Trinidad, V.S. Naipaul (b. 1932) settled in England after winning a scholarship to Oxford. The author of numerous successful novels including A House for Mr. Biswas and A Bend in the River, he was awarded the Booker Prize for In a Free State, which explores the problems of nationality and personal identity. Political violence, homelessness, and alienation are recurrent themes in his novels. Naipaul's non fiction includes an Indian travel anthology and several political essays.

SYNOPSIS

The esteemed writer prepared this essay of literary autobiography, in which he discusses his personal development as a writer, for the Charles Douglas-Home Memorial Trust (Douglas-Home was editor of , from 1982 until his death in 1985, when the trust was set up to award an annual prize in his memory). Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

FROM THE CRITICS

Library Journal

Naipaul started his literary career writing comic novels set in Trinidad. Then he progressed to probing travel narratives. Recently, he published correspondence with his family (Between Father and Son: Family Letters, LJ 1/00). This slim volume, which contains two essays that originally appeared in 1999 in the New York Review of Books, traces his evolution as a writer. In the first essay, he reflects on the various literary influences and circumstances that shaped his career. In the second, he ruminates on what prevented him from writing a novel set in India, the land of his forebears. When he argues that "fiction works best in a confined moral and cultural area where the rules are generally known," Naipaul suggests that the heyday of the novel is long past. Naipaul writes with clarity, and his arguments are persuasive; one wishes that he had expanded further on his literary theories. Recommended for comprehensive collections of Naipaul's writings.--Ravi Shenoy, North Central Coll. Lib., Naperville, IL Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.\

Laura Ciolkowski - The New York Times Book Review