Overview

Projects the writings of V. S. Naipaul in a dynamic dialogue with the events taking place in Trinidad, organising his works and events taking place decade by decade. The book is about V. S. Naipaul who was born in Trinidad in 1932. At the age of 18, Naipaul left Trinidad on a scholarship to study literature at Oxford. He never returned to live in Trinidad. His first book was published in 1956, and by the time Trinidad achieved political independence in 1962, he had published four books and was firmly established as a writer in England. By the time Trinidad became a republic in 1976, Naipaul had written 13 books and had travelled through much of the postcolonial world. This book highlights how Trinidad and Naipaul were bound in a love-hate relationship where Naipaul continued to pass Trinidad off as a cynical island where ""nothing was created"" while Trinidad had its share by laying back a claim on him and his writing. It is generally perceived that Naipaul shunned his place of birth as he called his birth in Trinidad a 'mistake,' Trinidad an 'unimportant, uncreative, cynical' place and the Caribbean as the 'Third World's Third World.' His refusal to acknowledge Trinidad in his initial response to receiving the Nobel Prize added insult to injury. Yet, he was deeply bound to the island of Trinidad and his roots in the Indo-Trinidadian community. This book makes Naipaul's connection to Trinidad more than evident and as such adds to the present body of knowledge.

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9781839989193

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V. S. Naipaul of Trinidad adopts an original approach to reclaim Naipaul for his birthplace, through assiduously documenting how Naipaul's growing global fame was perceived, and received, in his own native backyard. As a person of Indian origin herself long resident in Trinidad, Nivedita Misra offers here a unique double perspective. This is an invaluable work.-Harish Trivedi, Department of English, Delhi University, India. A provocative take on Naipaul's controversial Trinidad connection and its shaping influence on his life, work and critical reception. Nivedita Misra's incisive study resituates Naipaul's writings as a lifelong struggle to negotiate his fraught relationship with Trinidad, a place he could neither fully belong to nor quite abandon.-Radha Chakravarty, writer, critic and translator, was Professor of Comparative Literature & Translation Studies at Dr. B. R. Ambedkar University Delhi, India. Dr Misra frees Naipaul from the grasp of globalism, post-colonialism and other identifications as seen in the non-Trinidadian responses to his work. She pursues him doggedly throughout his career, as a Trinidadian to the bone, as obsessed with the island and its people as they are with him.-Kenneth Ramchand, Professor of West Indian Literature Emeritus, The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad. In this interesting book, Misra makes a convincing case that V. S. Naipaul was 'typically Trinidadian' in his published works and in the persona that he constructed over the decades of his writing life. She shows how Trinidad's unique society, and Naipaul's birth family, upbringing and youth, shaped all his work, not only the eight novels and several non-fiction books set in or about Trinidad but also the books on the Islamic world, Africa and England. - Bridget Brereton, Emerita Professor of History, The University of the West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago.

V. S. Naipaul of Trinidad adopts an original approach to reclaim Naipaul for his birthplace, through assiduously documenting how Naipaul’s growing global fame was perceived, and received, in his own native backyard. As a person of Indian origin herself long resident in Trinidad, Nivedita Misra offers here a unique double perspective. This is an invaluable work.—Harish Trivedi, Department of English, Delhi University, India. A provocative take on Naipaul’s controversial Trinidad connection and its shaping influence on his life, work and critical reception. Nivedita Misra’s incisive study resituates Naipaul’s writings as a lifelong struggle to negotiate his fraught relationship with Trinidad, a place he could neither fully belong to nor quite abandon.—Radha Chakravarty, writer, critic and translator, was Professor of Comparative Literature & Translation Studies at Dr. B. R. Ambedkar University Delhi, India. Dr Misra frees Naipaul from the grasp of globalism, post-colonialism and other identifications as seen in the non-Trinidadian responses to his work. She pursues him doggedly throughout his career, as a Trinidadian to the bone, as obsessed with the island and its people as they are with him.—Kenneth Ramchand, Professor of West Indian Literature Emeritus, The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad. In this interesting book, Misra makes a convincing case that V. S. Naipaul was ‘typically Trinidadian’ in his published works and in the persona that he constructed over the decades of his writing life. She shows how Trinidad’s unique society, and Naipaul’s birth family, upbringing and youth, shaped all his work, not only the eight novels and several non-fiction books set in or about Trinidad but also the books on the Islamic world, Africa and England. — Bridget Brereton, Emerita Professor of History, The University of the West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago.  

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Nivedita Misra is a postcolonial scholar with a focus on Indian diaspora in the Caribbean..

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