Synopsis
In a Free State deals in displacement. It tells first of an Indian servant in Washington, then of an Asian West Indian in London who is in jail for murder. Then the story moves to Africa, to a fictional country something like Uganda or Rwanda. The two main characters are English. They once found Africa liberating, but now it has gone sour on them. At a time of tribal conflict they have to make the long drive to the safety of their compound. In the background, the threat of violence looms.The voices in this novel are breathtakingly vivid, while the characters are portrayed with an intelligence and sensitivity that is rarely seen in contemporary writing. Dennis Potter described the book as one 'of such lucid complexity and such genuine insight, so deft and deep, that it somehow manages to agitate, charm, amuse and excuse the reader all at the same pitch of experience'. This is one of V.S. Naipaul's greatest novels, hard but full of pity.
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About V. S. Naipaul
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V. S. Naipaul
1932–2018
Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul (17 August 1932 – 11 August 2018) was a Trinidadian-born British writer of works of fiction and nonfiction in English. He is known for his comic early novels set in Trinidad, his bleaker novels of alienation in the wider world, and his vigilant chronicles of life and travels. He published more than thirty books over fifty years. Naipaul's breakthrough novel *A House for Mr Biswas* was published in 1961. He won the Booker Prize in 1971 for his novel In a *Free State,* and the Jerusalem Prize in 1983. In 1990, he was awarded the Trinity Cross, Trinidad and Tobago's highest national honour. He received a knighthood in Britain in 1990, and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2001. Some of his other works include *The Guerillas* (1975), *The Middle Passage* (1962) *A Bend in the River* (1979), *Among the Believers* (1981), *The Enigma of Arrival* (1987), *India: A Million Mutinies Now* (1990), *Beyond Belief* (1998) and *Half a Life* (2001).
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