V. S. Naipaul

"In The Middle Passage: 105 Days, Estella Conwill Majozo delves into the awesome voyage of her captured ancestors. Many accounts of the Middle Passage have been verbalized and visualized through fiction and non-fiction, such as Charles Johnson's Middle Passage and the historic description of the Amistad Revolt. Other accounts include Margaret Walker's Jubilee, which chronicles the genius of African struggle against formidable odds, and Alex Haley's Roots, which describes the brutal subjugation of the African flesh and spirit. Also, Toni Morrison's Beloved features the unrelenting resistance against slavery's continuing horrors, and the work of Tom Feelings portrays through deftly drawn lines and subtle renderings the horrors and courage endured during those dark days for many Africans. Yet, the story of the countless millions of enslaved Africans cannot be told enough times or in too many different ways." "In this poetic narrative, Majozo communes with her ancestors to conjure up a memorable primal cadence that conveys the anguish, sorrow, suffering, and triumph of the people despite the oppressive conditions of the Middle Passage. Robert Douglas' drawings also illustrate Majozo's narrative imagery creatively and are sensitive and passionate portrayals of Majozo's poetic expressions."--BOOK JACKET.

A collection of stories with settings in England, India and Trinidad, and ranging from humor to horror.

the masque of africa by naipaul is his latest book with a specific theme.he employs the technique of proceeding from the particular to the universal.with his deep and thorough visits to to africa he makes africa into a tautly knit unit bound by certain overtly visible traits.he feels that the continent still takes pride in its inherent african mind and ethos like its initiatin to good-old rituals,its ancient culture and its viable interest in music.but like ngugi,naipaul also becomes critical of certain neocolonial elements that pull the continent into a different direction.he is sorry for africa which,like a wounded animal ,is looking for a final vindication of its own painful journey.Dr. P.Suneetha,Head,Department of English,First Grade College,Gauribidanur,Bangalore University,India

"A profound novel of cultural displacement, The Mimic Men masterfully evokes a colonial man's experience in a postcolonial world. Born of Indian heritage and raised on a British-dependent Caribbean island, Ralph Singh has retired to suburban London, writing his memoirs as a means to impose order on a chaotic existence. His memories lead him to recognize the paradox of his childhood during which he secretly fantasized about a heroic India, yet changed his name from Ranjit Kripalsingh. As he assesses his short-lived marriage to an ostentatious white woman, Singh realizes what has kept him from becoming a proper Englishman. But it is the return home and his subsequent immersion in the roiling political atmosphere of a newly self-governed nation that ultimately provide Singh with the necessary insight to discover the crux of his disillusionment."--amazon.com.

The story of a writer's singular journey from Trinidad to England and from one state of mind to another.

Mohun Biswas strives to own his own home which he believes will symbolize his independence from his overbearing family.

Winner of the Booker Prize in 1971 this book comprises three novellas, set in three very different countries. The stories are about people surviving as best they can in states with varying levels of political, social and economic freedom.

Beyond Belief is a book about one of the more important and unsettling issues of our time: the effects of the Islamic conversion of Indonesia, Iran, Pakistan, and Malaysia. It is not a book of opinion. It is - in the Naipaul way - a very rich and human book, full of people and stories. Islam is an Arab religion, and it makes imperial Arabizing demands on its converts. In this way it is more than a private faith, and it can become a neurosis. What has this Arab Islam done to the histories of these converted countries? How do the converted peoples, non-Arabs, view their past - and their future? In a follow-up to Among the Believers, his classic account of his travels through these countries, V. S. Naipaul returns after seventeen years to find out how and what the converted preach. In Indonesia he finds a pastoral people who have lost their history through a confluence of Islam and technology. In Iran he discovers a religious tyranny as oppressive as the secular one of the Shah, and he meets people weary of the religious rules that govern every aspect of their lives. Pakistan - in a tragic realization of a Muslim re-creation fantasy - inherited blood feuds, rotting palaces, antique cruelty; then President Zia installed religious terror with $100 million of Saudi money. In Malaysia, the Muslim Youth organization is alive and growing, and the people are mentally, physically, and geographically torn between two worlds, struggling to live the impossible dream of a true faith born out of a spiritual vacancy.

Naipaul’s breakthrough novel is a marvellous comic tale of a Trinidadian of Indian descent striving to improve his lot. Continually making big plans for himself he constantly finds himself thwarted by his wife’s family and by his own ineptitude and over-reaching ambition.

"In 1950, after winning a scholarship from the government of Trinidad, V. S. Naipaul, aged seventeen, left home for the first time. Following a two-week journey by steamer, he arrived in Oxford, England, a world utterly removed from the one he had longed to escape and to which he would never really return. This extraordinary collection of letters gives us, as nothing published previously has, an intimate view of Naipaul's formative years."--BOOK JACKET.