V.S. Naipaul

ISBN-13: 9781403904553 / Angielski / Twarda / 2003 / 230 str.

Bruce Alvin King

Opis

This revised and updated introduction to the novels and non-fiction of V.S. Naipaul will be of interest to students, specialists and general readers. Chronological chapters examine the structure, significance and development of Naipaul's writing, setting the texts in their autobiographical, philosophical, social and political, colonial and post-colonial contexts. New chapters in the second edition include an expanded biographical introduction, and discussion of the recent novels A Way in the World and Half a Life, Naipaul's writings on Islam, and the criticism of Naipaul by writers and post-colonial theorists.

Spis treści

Preface.- Introduction.- Miguel Street, The Mystic Masseur, and The Suffrage of Elvira.- A House for Mr Biswas and The Middle Passage.- Mr Stone and the Knights Companion and An Area of Darkness.- A Flag on the Island, The Mimic Men, and The Loss of El Dorado.- In a Free State.- The Overcrowded Baracoon, 'Michael X', Guerrillas and India: A Wounded Civilization.- 'A New King for the Congo' and A Bend in the River.- Finding the Centre, The Enigma of Arrival, A Turn in the South, and India: A Million Mutinies.- A Way in the World.- Among the Believers, 'Our Universal Civilization' and Beyond Belief.- 'Two Worlds', Reading & Writing and Half a Life.- Naipaul's Critics and postcolonialism.- Appendix A: Naipaul's Family, A House for Mr Biswas and The Mimic Men.- Appendix B: Naipaul, Trinidad, Guyana and Africa.- Notes.- Selected Bibliography.- Index.

O autorze

BRUCE KING, now a freelance writer and a leading international literary critic, was professor of English and has taught in universities in England, France, Nigeria, Canada, Israel, New Zealand and the United States. His publications include Modern Indian Poetry in English, second edition (Oxford, 2001) and Derek Walcott: A Caribbean Life (Oxford, 2000). He is series editor for Literature, Culture and Identity (Continuum), English Dramatists and Modern Dramatists (both Palgrave Macmillan).

Blurb

V. S. Naipaul is a reader-friendly introduction to the writing of one of the most influential contemporary authors and the 2001 Nobel laureate in Literature. Bruce King provides a novel by novel analysis of the fiction with attention to structure, significance, and Naipaul's development as a writer, while setting the texts in their autobiographical. philosophical, social, political, colonial and postcolonial contexts. King shows how Naipaul modified Western and Indian literary traditions for the West Indies and then the wider world to become an international writer whose subject matter includes the Caribbean, England, India, Africa, the United States, Argentina, and contemporary Islam.

Thoroughly revised and updated, the second edition of V. S. Naipaul now includes an expanded Introduction, and discussion of his most recent novels A Way in the World and Half a Life, his Nobel Lecture, Naipaul's writings on Islam, and a survey of the main criticism by other writers and postcolonial theorists.