Volume 47, Number 1 · January 20, 2000
The House of Mr. Naipaul
By Pankaj Mishra
Between Father and Son: Family Letters
by V.S. Naipaul
Knopf, 285 pp., $26.00
In an essay called 'Prologue to an Autobiography,' V.S. Naipaul tells a story about Indian immigrants in Trini-dad. These immigrants had wanted to escape the general dereliction of late-nineteenth-century North India, and they had gone out to another British colony, Trinidad, to work there as indentured laborers. Many of them would have been attracted by the promise of a small grant of land after the end of their contract, or a free return trip to India with their families. But the promise had been fitfully redeemed by the colonial administration; and there were destitute and homeless Indians everywhere in Trinidad, people without land, or hope of returning to India.
Review, 5873 words
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