In 1950, V. S. Naipaul travelled from Trinidad to England to take up a place at Oxford University. Over the next few years, letters passed back and forth between Naipaul and his family -- particularly his beloved father Seepersad, but also his mother and siblings. The result is a fascinating chronicle of Naipaul's time at university; the love of writing that he shared with his father and their mutual nurturing of literary ambition; the triumphs and depressions of Oxford life; and the travails of his family back at home. This engrossing collection continues into the early years of V. S. Naipaul's literary career, touching time and again on the craft of writing, and revealing the relationships and experiences that formed and influenced one of the greatest and most enigmatic literary figures of our age. 'Rare and precious ...if any modern writer was going to breathe a last gasp into the epistolary tradition, it was always likely to be V. S. Naipaul' New Statesman 'Remarkable' Literary Review 'A very moving book' James Wood, London Review of Books 'A fascinating psychological narrative' The Times

Letters Between a Father and Son

Literature & Fiction

V. S. Naipaul,V Naipaul

Essays & Correspondence

Picador USA

For the `serious traveller', one who is fully engaged with the world, there can be no single view. Our author's purpose, then, `is not literary criticism or biography', but only to set out the writing and ways of seeing to which he was exposed. So here is colonial Trinidad (the early Derek Walcott and Naipaul's own father); the culture of school (Flaubert and the classical world); England, where with the help of friends the writer seeks to make his way; and, inevitably for a colonial Indian, there is India, to be approached through the residue of Indian culture and the scattered memories of nineteenth-century immigrants, leading to a special understanding of Mahatma Gandhi. Part meditation, part remembrance, A Writer's People is a privileged insight, full of gentleness, humour and feeling, into the mind of one of our greatest writers. `Essential reading . . . it offers the insights and observations - on literature, history and cultural sensibility - of an honest and truly global thinker' Evening Standard `The greatest writer now living in Britain. His courage in seeing and telling the truth represents a level of high seriousness that has all but vanished' Sunday Times `Naipaul has a sharp visual sense . . . And then there is his chiselled prose, elegant and economical: who, now living, writes as well as he?' Financial Times

Writer's People: Ways of Looking and Feeling

Picador

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by V. S. Naipaul,V Naipaul. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by V. S. Naipaul,V Naipaul

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by V. S. Naipaul,V Naipaul. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Letters Between a Father and Son

Writer's People: Ways of Looking and Feeling