Among the Believers, An Islamic Journey  •  V.S. Naipaul CULTURAL PORTRAIT •  1982 •  PAPER  • 430 PAGES A provocative, insightful account of Naipaul's travels in the 1979 through the non-Arab Islamic nations of Iran, Pakistan, Malaysia and Indonesia. Naipaul interweaves description and incident with interviews and thoughts on the role of religion. (ISL17, $16.00)
An Area of Darkness  •  V.S. Naipaul BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR •  2002 •  PAPER  • 267 PAGES A classic of modern travel writing, An Area of Darkness is Nobel laureate V. S. Naipaul's profound reckoning with his ancestral homeland and an extraordinarily perceptive chronicle of his first encounter with India. Traveling from the bureaucratic morass of Bombay to the ethereal beauty of Kashmir, from a sacred ice cave in the Himalayas to an abandoned temple near Madras, Naipaul encounters a dizzying cross-section of humanity: browbeaten government workers and imperious servants, a suavely self-serving holy man and a deluded American religious seeker. An Area of Darkness also abounds with Naipaul's strikingly original responses to India's paralyzing caste system, its apparently serene acceptance of poverty and squalor, and the conflict between its desire for self-determination and its nostalgia for the British raj. The result may be the most elegant and passionate book ever written about the subcontinent. (IDA13, $14.95)
A Bend in the River  •  V.S. Naipaul LITERATURE •  1989 •  PAPER Napaul's 1979 novel, set in a fictional Central African nation in the days after independence. The book's narrator Salim, an Indian merchant moves from the coast of East Africa to store in a village on the Congo. (AFR133, $13.95)
Beyond Belief, Islamic Excursions Among the Converted People  •  V.S. Naipaul TRAVEL NARRATIVE •  1999 •  PAPER  • 432 PAGES Revisiting his "Among the Believers", Naipaul returns to the Islamic nations of Indonesia, Pakistan, Malaysia and Iran. An essential guide to complex beliefs and emotions, this book of interviews, stories and trenchant observation is an outstanding portrait. (ASA14, $15.00)
The Enigma of Arrival, A Novel  •  V.S. Naipaul LITERATURE •  1988 •  PAPER This autobiographical novel conjures Naipaul's dual homes on Trinidad and England, as well as his feelings of cultural detachment and alienation in a haunting series of ruminations. (GBR456, $15.95)
Father India, Westerners Under the Spell of an Ancient Culture  •  Jeffrey Paine CULTURAL PORTRAIT •  1999 •  PAPER  • 324 PAGES A lively cultural history, which explores the attraction of India on diverse visitors and intellectuals over the last 100 years, including Annie Besant, E. M. Forster, Carl Jung, William Butler Yeats, V.S. Naipaul, Christopher Isherwood, and Martin Luther King Jr. (IDA165, $14.95)
A House for Mr. Biswas  •  V.S. Naipaul LITERATURE •  2000 •  PAPER  • 564 PAGES With accolades by the likes of Paul Theroux and an introduction by Ian Baruma, this novel comes with a well deserved pedigree. Described as Dickensian in scope, it tells the story of an outsider struggling to find a place for himself in the complex society of Trinidad. Like all of Naipaul's work, it has as its subtext issues of race, class and his own family background. Poor Mr. Biswas finally gets his house in this comic masterpiece. (CRB20, $15.95)
India, A Wounded Civilization  •  V.S. Naipaul CULTURAL PORTRAIT •  2003 •  PAPER  • 208 PAGES Originally published in 1975, this vivid and unsentimental cultural portrait draws together conversations with Indians, news reports, politics and literature, paying particular attention to the Hindu confrontation with the West. (IDA224, $12.95)
The Loss of El Dorado, A Colonial History  •  V.S. Naipaul HISTORY •  2003 •  PAPER  • 376 PAGES A native of Trinidad, novelist and essayist, Naipaul in this book tries his hand to the early colonial history of Trinidad. It's a history based on a quest for gold, the madness of slavery, exploitation and greed. He follows the fate of the island at the hands of colonial powers from the arrival of the Spanish conquistador Spaniard Antonio de Berrio to the raids of Sir Walter, French sugar planters, and life as a British colony. (CRB178, $14.00)
The Middle Passage, The Caribbean Revisited  •  V.S. Naipaul TRAVEL NARRATIVE •  2002 •  PAPER  • 232 PAGES A brilliant, insightful writer born in Trinidad, Naipaul is well prepared to discuss the fascinating cultural mix of the region. Modeled after the travelogues of the 19th century writer Anthony Trollope, the book is part character sketch, part commentary and part travels. It's a classic. With chapters on Trinidad, British Guiana (Guyana), Surinam, Martinique and Jamaica. (CRB11, $14.95)
A Turn in the South  •  V.S. Naipaul TRAVEL NARRATIVE •  1990 •  PAPER  • 307 PAGES First published in the New Yorker Magazine, this is Naipaul's wandering travel narrative that reveals both a poetic and disturbing portrait of the American South. In his first book devoted to the United States, Naipaul journeys to Atlanta, Charleston, Tallahassee, Tuskegee, Nashville, and Chapel Hill. (USS65, $14.95)