An Area of Darkness: His Discovery of India

The first book in V. S. Naipaul’s acclaimed Indian trilogy – with a preface by the author.

An Area of Darkness is V. S. Naipaul’s semi-autobiographical account – at once painful and hilarious, but always thoughtful and considered – of his first visit to India, the land of his forebears. He was twenty-nine years old; he stayed for a year. From the moment of his inauspicious arrival in Prohibition-dry Bombay, bearing whisky and cheap brandy, he experienced a 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 provides a revelation both of India and of himself: a displaced person who paradoxically possesses a stronger sense of place than almost anyone.

‘His narrative skill is spectacular. One returns with pleasure to the slow hand-in-hand revelations of both India and himself’ – The Times

• | Author: V.S. Naipaul
• | Publisher: Pan Macmillan
• | Publication Date: Sep 03, 2010
• | Number of Pages:
• | Language:
• | Binding: Paperback / softback
• | ISBN-13: 9780330522830
• | ISBN-10: 0330522833