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V. S. Naipaul of Trinidad
By Nivedita Misra
The book collects material from local critics, newspapers and interviews to present V. S. Naipaul in new light as a “true blue” Trinidadian writer. The book foregrounds Naipaul’s deep connections not only with the land of his birth but with its literary and historical heritage and its peoples.
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About This Book
The book comes at a time when V. S. Naipaul has passed away, and it is important to assess his place within the Caribbean as compared to elsewhere. As the book positions itself in Trinidad, it provides an alternative view of Naipaul’s career from a non-metropolitan point of view. The book contrasts how Naipaul was read and received in the Caribbean against his reputation in the metropolitan centres.
The book is organized decade by decade, with 1950s beginning in 1950 to 1959, 1960s beginning with 1960 to 1969, etc. There are possibly two exceptions: A House for Mr Biswas (1961) is treated as a 1950s novel because it is thematically linked to his writings in the 1950s; “The Killings in Trinidad and The Death of Eva Peron” (1980) are about the happenings in 1970s and were published in 1980 only due to legal issues.
The book places the writings of Naipaul in a dynamic dialogue with the events taking place in Trinidad. There is no event of political or historical importance in Trinidad (1950s–1990s) that went unnoticed and unwritten about by Naipaul. He was a writer who wrote for his countrymen because he realized that it was his countrymen that most enjoyed his writings. Though he lived in England and was grateful for the global recognition his writing received, he knew that his writing spoke only to the true Trinidadian who appreciated him, his stances and his rebuffs.
Reviews
V. S. Naipaul of Trinidad adopts an original approach to reclaim Naipaul for his birthplace, through assiduously documenting how Naipaul’s growing global fame was perceived, and received, in his own native backyard. As a person of Indian origin herself long resident in Trinidad, Nivedita Misra offers here a unique double perspective. This is an invaluable work.—Harish Trivedi, Department of English, Delhi University, India.
A provocative take on Naipaul’s controversial Trinidad connection and its shaping influence on his life, work and critical reception. Nivedita Misra’s incisive study resituates Naipaul’s writings as a lifelong struggle to negotiate his fraught relationship with Trinidad, a place he could neither fully belong to nor quite abandon.—Radha Chakravarty, writer, critic and translator, was Professor of Comparative Literature & Translation Studies at Dr. B. R. Ambedkar University Delhi, India.
Dr Misra frees Naipaul from the grasp of globalism, post-colonialism and other identifications as seen in the non-Trinidadian responses to his work. She pursues him doggedly throughout his career, as a Trinidadian to the bone, as obsessed with the island and its people as they are with him.—Kenneth Ramchand, Professor of West Indian Literature Emeritus, The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad.
In this interesting book, Misra makes a convincing case that V. S. Naipaul was ‘typically Trinidadian’ in his published works and in the persona that he constructed over the decades of his writing life. She shows how Trinidad’s unique society, and Naipaul’s birth family, upbringing and youth, shaped all his work, not only the eight novels and several non-fiction books set in or about Trinidad but also the books on the Islamic world, Africa and England. — Bridget Brereton, Emerita Professor of History, The University of the West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago.
Author Information
Nivedita Misra is a scholar of literature and diaspora in the Caribbean.
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Table of Contents
Introduction; Chapter 1: Early Fiction of the 1950s: The Trinidad Years The Mystic Masseur ; The Suffrage of Elvira; Miguel Street; A House for Mr Biswas; Chapter 2: The Interloper in Travel Writing: The Middle Passage; An Area of Darkness; Chapter 3: Mimicry and Experiments of the 1960s: Mr Stone and the Knights Companion; A Flag on the Island; The Mimic Men; The Loss of El Dorado; Chapter 4: Displacement Across Borders in the 1970s, 4.1 The Booker Prize and the Black Power Movement & 4.2 In a Free State; The Return of Eva Perón, with The Killings in Trinidad; Guerrillas; India: A Wounded Civilisation; A Bend in the River; Chapter 5: The Imperial Vision of the 1980s: Among the Believers; Finding the Centre; The Enigma of Arrival; A Turn in the South; Chapter 6: Redemptive Journeys in the 1990s: India: A Million Mutinies Now; A Way in the World; Beyond Belief; Letters between a Father and Son; Chapter 7: Composing again in the 2000s: Half A Life; Magic Seeds; A Writer’s People; The Masque of Africa; Conclusions; Works Cited
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