Book description
AN AREA OF DARKNESS is V. S. Naipaul's semi-autobiographical account -
at once painful and hilarious, always concerned - of his first visit to
India, the land of his forbears. From the moment of his inauspicious
arrival in Prohibition-dry Bombay, bearing whisky and cheap brandy, he
began to experience a sense of 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 is by turns
tender, lyrical, explosive and cruel. With spectacular narrative skill,
Naipaul provides a revelation both of India and of himself: a displaced
person who paradoxically possesses a stronger sense of place than almost
anyone. 'A masterpiece of travel-writing' Paul Theroux 'Brilliant'
Observer
