V. S. Naipaul of Trinidad

Nivedita Misra is a scholar of literature and diaspora in the Caribbean.

• 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

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.