Author Description

This 1972 collection of journalistic writings is... truly awesome. In the opening paragraph, Naipual writes, aged just 26, 'I have written three books in five years and made 300 pounds out of them'. Then he explains the doubts and constraints for an aspiring writer from a tiny Carribean island-colony... This is his first printed collection of semi-autobiographic musings about himself and others...Paul Theroux wrote two "biographies"about him, a glowing portrait from Kampala in the 1970s, then a scathing account decades later.... Naipaul is highly present in many of his later books, quite opinionated, some would say prejudiced on almost every creed, race or polity. Being a nice person is helpful when persuing a career in writing. Plenty of evidence suggests that Naipaul was not. Long ago he addressed anl auditorium at an Amsterdam university. At question-time, he was asked his opinion about black people (Africa, Carribean). He left in a huff, heading straight for the airport....And woe the editor who dared change change anything in a manuscript submitted. Naipaul, because of his uphill struggles to become a writer, his early recreational reading of dictionnaries, his life-long interaction with thousands of very different people on five continents, felt he had a right not to suffer fools gladly. He let his light shine on many of today's pertinent issues such as migration, identity and Islam and what caused the Indian subcontinent to become such laggards. Did he decry colonial rule? He surely regretted its legacy...