An Area of Darkness: His Discovery of India - Softcover

Naipaul, Sir V. S.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0330522833 ISBN 13: 9780330522830

Publisher: Picador, 2010

Synopsis

The first book in V. S. Naipaul’s acclaimed Indian trilogy – with a preface by the author.

An Area of Darkness is V. S. Naipaul’s semi-autobiographical account – at once painful and hilarious, but always thoughtful and considered – of his first visit to India, the land of his forebears. He was twenty-nine years old; he stayed for a year. From the moment of his inauspicious arrival in Prohibition-dry Bombay, bearing whisky and cheap brandy, he experienced a cultural estrangement from the subcontinent. It became for him a land of myths, an area of darkness closing up behind him as he travelled . . .

The experience was not a pleasant one, but the pain the author suffered was creative rather than numbing, and engendered a masterful work of literature that provides a revelation both of India and of himself: a displaced person who paradoxically possesses a stronger sense of place than almost anyone.

‘His narrative skill is spectacular. One returns with pleasure to the slow hand-in-hand revelations of both India and himself’ The Times

About this title

Product Description:

A luminous and challenging work of autobiographical travel writing.

Review:

His narrative skill is spectacular. One returns with pleasure to the slow hand-in-hand revelations of both India and himself. (The Times)

About this edition

• Publisher: Picador
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0330522833
• ISBN 13: 9780330522830
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304