Product 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

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #100368 in Books
• Published on: 2002-05-10
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 200 pages

Review
'A masterpiece of travel-writing' Paul Theroux 'Brilliant' Observer

About the Author
V.S. Naipaul was born in Trinidad in 1932. He is the author of thirteen works of fiction, including A House for Mr Biswas, A Bend in the River and The Mystic Masseur, and ten of non-fiction including India: A Wounded Civilisation and Among the Believers. He has won the Booker Prize, the John Llewelyn Rhys Memorial Prize, the Hawthornden Prize, the WH Smith award and in 1993 was awarded the first David Cohen British Literature Award. His new novel, Half A Life, was published in September 2001. Shortly afterwards he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. He lives in Wiltshire.

Customer Reviews

Frank Account of Unpleasant Side of India - Helpful
This is the first of three books Naipaul has written about India - this one covers his first trip in 1962. I felt it was very helpful in letting me come to terms with the less pleasing side of India that I encountered in the course of several fascinating (and often wonderful) trips there - the side of India proverbial with poverty, dirt, corruption and inefficiency, that is tragically a part of any visitor's journey there but tends in some guide books or travelogues to be pushed aside or down played. Perhaps it takes an (ethnic) Indian like Naipaul to be fearless about tackling this. His description of Kashmir was especially memorable. If you like this book, try his other two India books, describing later trips: *A Wounded Civilization* and *India*. While these books will not cater to Western daydreams of a "spiritual" India, they will help the detached reader understand a more complete India, and one without the spin-doctoring.

Area of Darkness that Enlightened Me
I first read this book when I was 12 years old (back in 1980) and it amazed me on how an author who is a x generation Indian like myself feels when he returns to the land of his forefathers.
I vividly remember the first chapters regarding VS Naipaul's attempt to recuperate a bottle of liquor (Metaxas) amidst one of the worst things that India inherited from the British: -i.e their bureaucracy.
His description of Kashmir, wow ...transports you there and reminds us of a place bereft of the strife which we know of today especially thanks to those fundamentalists.
Brilliant Book...the first author who got me interested in reading serious stuff