V.S. Naipaul, Caribbean writing, and Caribbean thought / William Ghosh.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ghosh, William, 1990- author.

Series:

Oxford English monographs

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Naipaul, V. S. (Vidiadhar Surajprasad), 1932-2018--Criticism and interpretation.

Naipaul, V. S.

Naipaul, V. S. (Vidiadhar Surajprasad), 1932-2018.

Criticism and interpretation.

Caribbean Area--Fiction.

Caribbean Area.

Genre:

Fiction.

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Physical Description:

viii, 192 pages ; 23 cm.

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2020.

Summary:

V.S. Naipaul was one of the most influential and controversial writers of the twentieth century. His writings on colonialism and its aftermath, on migration and landscape, and on cultural loss and creativity, were both admired and criticised by a wide global audience. 0But what of his relationship to the region of his birth? Born in Trinidad, of Indian ancestry, and spending his professional life in England, Naipaul could be dismissive of his Caribbean background. He presented himself as a citizen of nowhere, or else, of the globalized, postcolonial world. However, this obscures his intense competition, fierce disagreements and close collaboration with other Caribbean intellectuals, both as a schoolchild in colonial Trinidad, and as an internationally0celebrated author. V.S. Naipaul, Caribbean Writing, and Caribbean Thought looks again at Naipaul's relationship with his birthplace. It shows that that the decolonising Caribbean was the crucible in which Naipaul's style and outlook were formed. Moreover, understanding Naipaul's place in the history of the region's politics and letters sheds new light on the work of celebrated contemporaries, Derek Walcott and Kamau Brathwaite, George Lamming and Maryse Conde, Elsa Goveia and Eric Williams, Sylvia Wynter and C.L.R. James. 0Literary criticism, intellectual biography, and an essay in the history of ideas, this book offers a new account of Caribbean thought in the decades after independence. It reveals a literary culture of creative vibrancy, in an era of unprecedented change.

Contents:

1 A House for Mr Biswas and the Theory of the West Indian Novel p. 31

Modernism and its Discontents: James, Lamming, Brathwaite p. 34

Conscripts of Colonial Form: A House for Mr Biswas p. 42

Naipaul Before Biswas p. 42

Biswas as Reader p. 48

Biswas as Writer p. 52

Naipaul as Writer p. 57

Theories of the Novel after Biswas p. 60

Brathwaite and Theories of Cultural Retention p. 60

Naipaul in the 1960s p. 69

Wynter's Naipaul: Involvement p. 76

2 The Loss of El Dorado and 'Colonial' Historiography p. 81

West Indian Historiography in the 1960s: Williams, Goveia, James, Naipaul p. 84

Antonyms of Colonialism: Romance and the New World p. 96

Antonyms of Romance: Colonialism, Slavery and West Indian Subject-Formation p. 106

Historical Writing and the West Indian Future p. 116

3 Caribbean Eyes: V.S. Naipaul and Other Traditions of Travel p. 121

African Retention and the 'Realistic Shock': Lamming, Shiva Naipaul, V.S. Naipaul p. 128

Lamming in Ghana p. 128

Shiva Naipaul in East Africa, V.S. Naipaul in Zaire p. 134

From Travelogue to Life Writing: Naipaul and Conde p. 147

Naipaul in the Ivory Coast p. 149

From 'Parenthesis' to 'Perimeter': Conde's La Vie sans fards p. 157

V.S. Naipaul: Postcolonial Mandarin? p. 163.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 179-188) and index.

ISBN:

0198861109

9780198861102

OCLC:

1159579359