An Area of Darkness

V.S. Naipaul

£10.99

We send all orders via Royal Mail: within the UK, choose from 1st Class, 2nd Class or Special Delivery; for the rest of the world, International Standard or International Tracked. Delivery and packaging charges are calculated automatically at the checkout.

To collect orders in person from the Bookshop, choose Click and Collect at the checkout.


Pan Macmillan
3 October 2024
ISBN: 9781035051809
Paperback
304 pages

From the publisher

The first book in V. S. Naipaul’s acclaimed Indian trilogy, republished as part of the Picador Collection.

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

An Area of Darkness is V. S. Naipaul’s semi-autobiographical account of his first visit to India, the land of his forebears. At once painful and hilarious, but always thoughtful and considered.

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 is revelatory both of India and of himself: a displaced person who paradoxically possesses a stronger sense of place than almost anyone.

Now part of the Picador Collection, a series showcasing the very best of modern literature.