Literary Occasions: EssaysEleven essays on reading, writing, and identity—which have been brought together for the first time—from the Nobel Prize-winning author. • “He brings to [nonfiction] an extraordinary capacity for making art out of lucid thought…. I can no longer imagine the world without Naipaul’s writing.” —Vivian Gornick, Los Angeles Times Book Review Here the subject is Naipaul’s literary evolution: the books that delighted him as a child; the books he wrote as a young man; the omnipresent predicament of trying to master an essentially metropolitan, imperial art form as an Asian colonial from a New World plantation island. He assesses Joseph Conrad, the writer most frequently cited as his forebear, and, in his celebrated Nobel Lecture, “Two Worlds,” traces the full arc of his own career. Literary Occasions is an indispensable addition to the Naipaul oeuvre, penetrating, elegant, and affecting. |
Contents
East Indian | |
Jasmine | |
Foreword to The Adventures of Gurudeva | |
Foreword to A House for Mr Biswas | |
The Last of the Aryans | |
Theatrical Natives | |
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ambition Aryan Autobiography background became become began beginning Biswas Bogart brahmin British called Carenage Caribbean caste century Chaguanas Chaudhuri child childhood colonial Conrad Continent of Circe culture darkness early East Indian England English epic everything experience fantasy father feel felt fiction freelances Gandhi gift Gulf of Paria Gurudeva Hindu house in Chaguanas Ibn Battuta idea imagination immigrants island Karain kind Kipling knew knowledge labour Lagoon land language later letter literary literature lived London looking MacGowan memory mother's family Muslim narrative never Nirad Nirad Chaudhuri novel Oxford past perhaps Port of Spain pundit R. K. Narayan Ramayana Ramlila remember ritual romance scholarship seemed servant room society someone Spanish story street things thought Trinidad Guardian turn typewriter V. S. Naipaul Venezuela verandah village vision words writing written wrote yard