Appendix A Naipaul's Family, and The Mimic Men

As Naipaul dislikes writing about the unfamiliar his fiction makes imaginative use of actual people and events. His sources are useful to understand the autobiographical implications of the novels. His father Seepersad (b. 1906) is the model for Mr Biswas. Mter Seepersad's father died when he was six years old, Seepersad and his impoverished mother became dependent on his mother's sis• ter (the novel's Tara) and her wealthy husband (Ajodha) who owned rum shops, taxis and other businesses. Mter some school• ing Seepersad became a sign-painter; he painted a sign for the general store connected to Lion House (Hanuman House) owned by the Capildeos (the Tulsis) of and married Bropatie Capildeo (Shama). Although his children were born in Lion House he usually resided elsewhere. Mter he had painted advertising signs for the Trinidad Guardian (the Sentinel), the editor allowed him to submit articles, then hired him as a reporter. As Seepersad had a highly developed sense of humour his reports and interviews made him well known. Mter several moves he became the newspa• per's Chaguanas correspondent but lived by himself in a wooden house away from Lion House until he had a mental collapse - possibly influenced by his resignation from the paper after the editor had been fired and its policy changed, and possibly by a fierce quarrel with the very orthodox Hindu Capildeos about reli• gious reform. Mter his nervous breakdown he became an overseer on a Capildeo estate (Green Vale) and then a shopkeeper (The Chase). He rejoined the Guardian, and moved to where for ten years he lived in various houses owned by the 153 154 v. S. Naipaul Capildeos before acquiring his own house (the Sikkim Street house). He spent three years with a new Department of Social Welfare, after which the Department was abolished and he re• turned again to the Guardian, although he lost his pension rights. He died of a heart attack during 1953 when V. S. Naipaul was studying in . The Capildeos descended from a minor Indian aristocrat and pundit who was kidnapped in Calcutta and sent to Trinidad as an indentured labourer. There he married Rosalie Soogee Gobin (Mrs Tulsi) with whom he had nine daughters and two sons before he died (1925). Rudranath (Owad) , the younger son, attended Queen's Royal College, where he was (like Ganesh in The Mystic Masseur) for a time, as a rural Indian, a misfit who studied hard but did not do well, and after graduation taught. He (Owad again) went to university in England where he was elected head of several student organizations, read the Statesman and became an avid supporter of Soviet Communism. He returned to Trinidad where he lived with his mother while he and his elder brother, Sambhoonath (Shekhar) became involved in one of the new pol• itical parties (various details are used in The Mystic Masseur where Rudranath is a source for Indrasingh). Rudranath returned to England, for post-graduate research, then became the leader of the Democratic Labour Party when the Trinidadian opposition needed a well known educated Indian to oppose ' People's National Movement. Although predominantly Indian the DLP was multiracial and for a time included Uriah Butler and among its leadership. Because of its mixed racial leadership, most of whom were the older, flamboyant, independ• ent politicans, it was also unstable and when an Indian quit in 1957 Butler declared that all Indians were traitors. Rudranath (the Ralph Singh of The Mimic Men) was wealthy, politically ineffective, divided his time between England and Trinidad, wrote spiritualistic autobiographies (like The Mystic Masseur and Singh in The Mimic Men) but won a majority in the 1958 election. As Williams saw his PNM leading Trinidad to independence and hoped to head a Caribbean federation, both of which the Indians opposed as lead• ing to black domination, he accused the Indians of treason, of being a 'hostile and recalcitrant minority', the 'greatest danger facing the country', and violence followed. The 1961 elections, which the PNM won, were particularly brutal with PNM supporters Appendix A 155 looting Indian shops and homes while the predominantly black police made house by house searches for arms in Indian areas. Rudranath foolishly declared the Indians would overthrow the government by force but did nothing. Williams declared a state of emergency. Rudranath broke down and returned to England where he lived in Brighton. Gomes also soon fled.5o Appendix B Naipaul, Trinidad and Mrica

As some critics interpret Naipaul's writings as prejudiced against blacks or the third world, a summary of a few additional facts about the racial politics of Trinidad may be useful. Trinidad and Guyana are among the new nations whose populations are not native and where the coming of independence created mutual fears of domi• nance between opposing ethnic groups. The period between 1946 and 1961 was particularly bad in Trinidad as the black urban population, led by Eric Williams, was pressing for complete independence from England and for a Trinidadian-led Caribbean Federation, while the Indian population opposed both, fearing domination by black majorities. Eric Williams, who led the People's National Movement, was charismatic, tough, unscrupu• lous and influenced by the Marxist model of a one-party state. Having led Trinidad towards independence he believed opposi• tion was treasonable. Although he spoke of the need for a multira• cial Trinidad he used a rhetoric of religious deliverance in which national freedom meant government by those of Mrican descent. When in power he appointed no Hindu Indians to the senior positions and, according to C. L. R. James, some of the leadership of Williams' People's National Movement were fanatically anti• Hindu Indian (although the PNM did include Moslem Indians).51 The violence and accusations of treason against Indians during the period 1946 to 1961 undoubtedly influenced Naipaul's view of de co Ionization in unhomogeneous, mixed societies, a view that would have been reinforced by the confiscation of the businesses and the expulsions of Indians from newly independent East and Central Mrican nations. The same liberal politicians and intellec• tuals who in Europe and the United States favoured independence 156 Appendix B 157 and black rule in Mrica and the Caribbean seldom spoke up against the mistreatment of Indians, and sometimes justified it by arguing that the Indians were an alien entrepreneurial class who blocked black advancement into business. (Notice the comments of Linda and Bobby about Indian shopkeepers in 'In a Free State' .) Considering Naipaul's experience in Trinidad and his observa• tions of Guyana and Mrica he seems surprisingly analytical about the causes of black discrimination against Indians; he distinguishes between nations, such as the United States and England, where those of Mrican descent are a minority subject to discrimination and nations where they discriminate against others or, as in parts of Mrica, among themselves. Those who believe that all post• colonial literature consists of resistance to imperialist, capitalist, white patriarchy might remember that post-structuralism is founded on 'differance' and that deconstruction aims at demythification of stereotypes. Notes

1. Many of N aipaul' s sources and allusions are mentioned in John Thieme, The Web of Allusions (: Hansib, 1988). 2. The factual basis of many of the writings can be found in Landeg White, V. S. Naipaul (London: Macmillan, 1975). 3. Rhonda Cobham, 'The Caribbean Voices Programme and the Develop• ment of West Indian Short Fiction: 1945-1958' in Peter O. Stummer (ed.), The Story Must Be Told: Short Narrative Prose in the New English Literature (Wiirzburg: Konigshausen & Neuman, 1986), pp. 146-60. 4. V. S. Naipaul, 'Our Universal Civilization', The New York Review of Books (31 January 1991), 22-5. 5. See Ben Whitaker (ed.), The Fourth World: Victims of Group oppression (New York: Schocken, 1973). The situation for Indians became worse in Uganda and Zaire. 6. It was not just Williams. Arnold Rampersad remembers 'the ever-present campaign of humiliation and demoralization and threats of violence aimed at Indians ... in the capital, Port of Spain, in the late 1940s.... I do not want to leave the impression that East Indians were not, for their part, hostile to Mro-Trinidadians. However, they were a minority, and their normal hostility took a different, far less physical form, and counted for almost nothing in Port of Spain, where few Indians lived.' Rampersad says, 'it is no more possible to understand Naipaul's mind and art without reference to racism, violence, and intolerance in Trini• dad than to understand Richard Wright without reference to the same factors in the South.' He sees both as exiles wounded by their 'homes', who turned to travel writing. Arnold Rampersad, 'v. S. Naipaul: Turning in the South', Raritan, 20:1 (Summer 1990), 24-47: 45-6. 7. See Bruce King (ed.), West Indian Literature (London: Macmillan, 1979), and Kenneth Ramchand, The West Indian Novel and its Background (Lon• don: Faber, 1970). 8. See Naipaul's 'Foreword' to The Adventures of Gurudeva and Other Stories (London: Deutsch, 1976); and Reinhard W. Sander, The Trinidad Awak• ening: West Indian Literature of the Nineteen-Thirties (New York: Greenwood Press, 1988), p. 150. 9. The Adventures, pp. 9-10. 10. Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin, The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in PostColonial Literatures (London: Routledge, 1989), pp.88-91. 11. Landeg White, V. S. Naipaul (London: Macmillan, 1975), p. 50. 12. Ivar Oxaal, Black Intellectuals Come to Power. The Rise of Creole Nationalism in (Cambridge, MaSs.: Schenkman, 1968), pp. 100-1. As late as 1961 PNM posters described Eric Williams as

158 Notes 159 'Moses II'. The use of Messianic rhetoric was earlier associated with Uriah Butler. 13. Earl Lovelace, The Dragon Can't Dance (Burnt Mill, Harlow: Longman Caribbean Writers Series, 1986; first published 1979), p. 23. 14. Oxaal' s Black Intellectuals Come to Power is useful for the Capildeos. See pp.160-80. 15. George Lamming also sees the West Indian black community both as absurdly mimicking the English and as overly racially sensitive. See Lamming, 'A Wedding in the Spring', Commonwealth Short Stories, ed. Anna Rutherford and Donald Hannah (London: Edward Arnold, 1971; Macmillan, 1979), pp. 44-56. 16. The People's National Movement was led by Dr Eric Williams and the Democratic Labour Party had Dr as its leader although, unlike Williams, his scholarship and display of knowledge had no political direction. 17. See Selwyn D. Ryan, Race and Nationalism in Trinidad and Tobago (Univer• sity of Toronto Press, 1972), pp. 146-7 and p. 157. 18. 'Unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art' (King Lear, lll.iv). 'Nothing will come of nothing' (Lear, I.i). When Anand sees a lamp during the storm the allusion is to Lear, 111.4, when Gloucester enters with a torch: 'Look, here comes a walking fire'. 19. See the discussion in the books by Thieme and Boxill listed in the Bibliography. Also see Geoffrey Riley, 'Echoes of Wells in Naipaul's A House for Mr Biswas', Notes and Qyeries, 36 (234): 2 Qune 1989), 208-9. 20. Bruce King, 'Anand's Recherche du Temps Perdu', Commonwealth, 6, No.1 (Autumn 1983), 1-18. 2l. Naipaul's use of H. G. Wells' Mr Polly has been discussed by, among others, Anthony Boxill, V. S. Naipaul's Fiction: In Qyest of the Enemy (Fredericton, New Brunswick: York Press, 1983). 22. See Richard Cronin, Imagining India (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989). 23. I have discussed this paradox in Bruce King, The New English Literature: Cultural nationalism in a changing world (London, Macmillan, 1980). 24. See Gordon Rohlehr, 'Talking about Naipaul', Carib, No.2 (1981), 39-65, esp. 49-52. 25. See James Pollack, 'The Parenthetic Destruction of Metaphor in V. S. Naipaul's The Mimic Men'. Osmania Journal ofEnglish Studies (December 1982) 90-9 (V. S. Naipaul Special Number). 26. V. S. Naipaul, 'The Documentary Heresy', 20th Century, 173 (Winter 1964-5),107-8. 27. Eric Roach, 'Fame a Short-lived Cycle, says Vidia', Trinidad Guardian, 4 January 1972, p. l. 28. Singh's Roman House may ironically allude to Eric Williams' house on Lady Chancellor's Road where the founding members of the PNM met. 29. See India: A Wounded Civilization, pp. 18-27, 37-43. 30. Vivek Dhareshwar, 'Self-fashioning, Colonial Habitus, and Double Exclusion: V. S. Naipaul's The Mimic Men', Criticism 31:1 (Winter 1989), 75-102. 160 V. S. Naipaul

31. Nan Doerksen, 'In A Free State and Nausea', World Literature Written in English, 20: 1 (Spring 1981),101-13. 32. U. R. Anantha Murthy, Samskara: A Rite for a Dead Man, translated by A. K. Ramanujan (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1976). Naipaul discusses this novel in India: A Wounded Civilization, pp. 104-12. 33. M. Banning Eyre, 'Naipaul at Wesleyan', The South Carolina Review, 14 (Spring 1982), 34-47: 45. 34. Bharati MukheIjee and Robert Boyers, 'A Conversation with V. S. Naipaul', Salmagundi, 54 (Fall 1981), 4-22: 16. 35. Harold Barratt, 'In Defence of Naipaul's Guerrillas', World Literature Written in English, 28:1 (1988),97-103. 36. Ivar Oxaal, Race and Revolutionary Consciousness: A Documentary Interpreta• tion of the 1970 Black Power Revolt in Trinidad (Cambridge, Mass: Schenkman, 1971). 37. Cathleen Medwick, 'Life, literature, and politics: an interview with V. S. Naipaul', Vogue, August 1981, pp. 129--30: 130. 38. V. S. Naipaul, 'Without a Dog's Chance', The New Y01k Review ofBooks, 18 (18 May 1972), 29--31. 39. Quoted by Farrukh Dhondy in Lisa Appignanesi and Sara Maitland (eds), The Rushdie File (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1990), p. 184. 40. See Ivar Oxaal, Black Intellectuals Come to Power. The Rise of Creole Nation• alism (Cambridge, Mass.: Schenkman, 1968), pp. 100-1. 41. V. S. Naipaul interviewed by Adrian Rowe-Evans, Transition, 40 (1971), 56-62: 57, 58. 42. V. S. Naipaul, 'A Plea for Rationality', Indians in the Caribbean, ed. I. J. Bahadur Singh (New Delhi: Sterling, 1987), pp. 17-30: 27. 43. See Naipaul's comments about Islamic historiography in his 'Our Uni• versal Civilization', The New Y01k Review ofBooks (31 January 1991), 22-5. 44. Some of the European classical sources are discussed in Steven Blakemore, '"An Mrica of Words": V. S. Naipaul's A Bend in the RiveT, The South Carolina Review, 18:1 (Fall 1985), 15-23. 45. Michael Neill, 'Guerrillas and Gang,s: Frantz Fanon and V. S. Naipaul', Arie~ 13:4 (1982), 21-62: see 43-5. 46. M. Banning Eyre, 'Naipaul at Wesleyan', The South Carolina Review (Spring 1982),34-47: 46. 47. I discuss Greene's use of Dante in 'Graham Greene's Inferno', Etudes Anglaises, 21:1 (1968),35-51. 48. V. S. Naipaul, 'Argentina: Living with Cruelty', The New York Review of Books; 39, No.3 (30 January 1992), 13. 49. As there is no bend in the Ganges in the classical Sanskrit texts of Ramayana, I wrote to ask Naipaul if he had a different version in mind. He replied that he was struck by the title of Malgonkar's novel. 50. Appendix A is based on the books by Landeg White, Scott MacDonald and Ivar Oxaal (Black Intelleduals Come to Power) listed in the Bibliogra• phy. See MacDonald, pp. 119--20, 135. Also see Brinsley Samaroo, 'Poli• tics and Mro-Indian Relations in Trinidad', in John La Guerre (ed), Calcutta to Caroni (Longman Caribbean, 1974), pp. 84-97. 51. See Selwyn D. Ryan, Race and Nationalism in Trinidad and Tobago (Univer• sity of Toronto Press, 1972), p. 201. Selected Bibliography

BOOKS BY V. S. NAIPAUL Dates are of first publication; page references are to Penguin editions, first date of publication ( ).

The Mystic Masseur, 1957 (1964). The Suffrage ofElvira, 1958 (1969). Miguel Street, 1959 (1971). A House for Mr Biswas, 1961; with a 'Foreword', 1983 (1969). The Middle Passage: Impressions ofFive Societies, 1962 (1969). Mr Stone and the Knights Companion, 1963 (1969). An Area of Darkness: An Experience of India, 1964 (1968). The Mimic Men, 1967 (1969). A Flag on the Island, 1968 (1969). The Loss of El Dorado: A History, 1969; revised edition, 1973 (1973). In a Free State, 1971 (1973). The Overcrowded Barracoon and Other Articles, 1972 (1976). Guerrillas, 1975 (1976). India: A Wounded Civilization, 1977 (1979). A Bend in the River, 1979 (1980). 'The Return of Eva Peron' with 'The Killings in Trinidaff, 1980 (1981). A Congo Diary (Los Angeles: Sylvester & Orphanpos), 1980. Among the Believers: An IslamicJourney, 1981 (1982). Finding the Centre: Two Narratives, 1984 (1985). The Enigma of Arriva~ 1987 (1987). A Turn in the South, 1989 (1989). India: A Million Mutinies, 1990.

OTHER WRITINGS BYNAIPAUL 'Critics and Criticism', Bim, 10:38 (January-June 1964), 74-7. 'The Documentary Heresy', 20th Century, 173 (Winter 1964-5), 107-8. 'Foreword' ,in The Adventures ofGurudeva and Other Stories by (London: Andre Deutsch, 1976). 'On Being a Writer', The New York Review of Books (23 April 1987), 7. 'Our Universal Civilization', The New York Review of Books (31 January 1991), 22-5. 'A Plea for Rationality', in Indians in the Caribbean, ed. I. J. Bahadur Singh (New Delhi: Sterling, 1987), pp. 17-30.

161 162 v. S. Naipaul

'Without a Dog's Chance', The New York Review ofBooks (18 May 1972), 29-3l. 'Argentina: Living with Cruelty', The New Yom Review of Books, 39, No.3 (30 January 1992), 13-18.

INTERVIEWS James Applewhite, 'A Trip with V. S. Naipaul', Raritan, 10:1 (Summer 1990), 48-54. Nigel Bingham, 'The Novelist V. S. Naipaul Talks about his Childhood', The Listener, 7 September 1972, pp. 306-67. M. Banning Eyre, 'Naipaul at Wesleyan', The South Carolina Review, 14 (Spring 1982),34-47. Elizabeth Hardwick, 'Meeting V. S. Naipaul', New York Times Book Review (13 May 1979),1,36. Michael Harris, 'Naipaul on Campus: Sending out a Plea for Rationality', Tapia [Trinidad] (29June 1975),2. Alfred Kazin, 'V. S. Naipaul, Novelist as Thinker', The New York Review ofBooks (1 May 1977), 20-l. Cathleen Medwick, 'Life, literature, and politics: an interview with V. S. Naipaul', Vogue, August 1981, pp. 129-30. Charles Michener, 'The Dark Visions ofV. S. Naipaul', Newsweek, 16 Novem• ber 1981, pp. 104-17. Bharati Mukherjee and Robert Boyers, 'A Conversation with V. S. Naipaul', Salmagundi, 54 (1981), 4-22. Eric Roach, 'Fame a Short-lived Cycle, says Vidia', Trinidad Guardian, 4Janu• ary 1972, pp. 1-2. Adrian Rowe-Evans, 'V. S. Naipaul', Transition [Ghana], 40 (1971),56-62. Derek Walcott, 'Interview with V. S. Naipaul', Sunday Guardian [Trinidad], 7 March 1965, pp. 5, 7.

SECONDARY READINGS General Background Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin, The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-colonial Literatures (London: Routledge, 1989). David Dabydeen and Brinsley Samaroo (eds) , India in the Caribbean (London: Hansib Publishing, 1988). Bruce King, The New English Literatures: Cultural nationalism in a changing world (London: Macmillan, 1980). Bruce King (ed.), West Indian Literature (London: Macmillan 1979). Morton Klass, East Indians in Trinidad (London: Columbia University Press, 1961) . John La Guerre (ed.), Calcutta to Caroni: The East Indians of Trinidad (London: Longman, 1974). David Lowenthal, West Indian Societies (London: Oxford University Press, 1972). Scott B. MacDonald, Trinidad and Tobago: Democracy and Development in the Carribean (New York; Praeger, 1986). Yogendra Malik, East Indians in Trinidad: A Study in Minority Politics (London: Oxford University Press, 1971). Selected Bibliography 163

Seepersad Naipaul, Gurudeva and Other Indian Tales (Port of Spain: Trinidad Publishers, 1943). Ivar Oxaal, Black Intellectuals Come to Power. The Rise of Creole Nationalism in Trinidad & Tobago (Cambridge, Mass: Schenkrnan, 1968). Ivar Oxaal, Race and Revolutionary Consciousness: A Documentary Interpretation of the 1970 Black Power Revolt in Trinidad (Cambridge, Mass.: Schenkman, 1971). Kenneth Ramchand, The West Indian Novel and Its Background (London: Heinemann Educational, 2nd edn, 1984). Selwyn D. Ryan, Race and Nationalism in Trinidad and Tobago: A Study of decolonization in a multiracial society (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1972). Reinhard W. Sander, The Trinidad Awakening: West Indian Literature of the Nineteenr Thirties (New York: Greenwood Press, 1988). Ben Whitaker (ed.), The Fourth World: Victims of Group oppression (New York: Schocken Books, 1973).

SOME BOOKS ABOUT NAIPAUL Anthony Boxill, V. S. Naipaul's Fiction: In Qy,est of the Enemy (Fredericton, New Brunswick: York Press, 1983). Robert Hamner, V. S. Naipaul (New York: Twayne, 1973). Robert Hamner (ed.), Critical Perspectives on V. S. Naipaul (Washington, DC: Three Continents Press, 1977). Dolly Zulakha Hassan, V. S. Naipaul and the West Indies (New York: Peter Lang, 1989). Kelvin Jarvis, V. S. Naipaul:. A Selective Bibliography with Annotations, 1957-1987 (Metuchen, New Jersey: Scarecrow, 1989). Robert K. Morris, Paradoxes of Order. Some Perspectives on- the Fiction of V. S. Naipaul (Columbia: University of Missouri, 1975). Peggy Nightingale, Journey Through Darkness: The Writing of V. S. Naipaul (St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1987). Paul Theroux, V. S. Naipaul: An Introduction to His Work (London: Andre Deutsch, 1972). John Thieme, The Web of Tradition: Uses of Allusion in V. S. Naipaur s Fiction (London: Hansib Publishing, 1988). Landeg White, V. S. Naipaul (London: Macmillan, 1975).

SPECIAL ISSUES OF JOURNALS Commonwealth, 6, No.1 (Autumn 1983). Commonwealth, 9, No.1 (Autumn 1986). Modern Fiction Studies, 30, No.3 (Autumn 1984). Osmania Journal of English Studies, V. S. Naipaul Special Number (December 1982).

ARTICLES Harold Barratt, 'In Defence of Naipaul's Guerrillas', World Literature Written in English, 28:1 (Spring 1988), 97-10l. 164 v. S. Naipaul Steven Blakemore, '"An Mrica of Words": V. S. Naipaul's A Bend in the River, South Carolina Review, 18:1 (Fall 1985), 15-23. John Carthew, 'Adapting to Trinidad: Mr Biswas and Mr Polly Revisited', Journal of Commonwealth Literature, 13: 1 (1978),58-64. Rhonda Cobham, 'The Caribbean Voices Programme and the Development of West Indian Short Fiction: 1945-1958' in The Story Must Be Told: Short Narrative Prose in the NewEnglish Literatures, ed. Peter O. Stummer (Wiirzburg: Konigshausen & Neumann, 1986), pp. 146-60. Richard Cronin, 'An Area ofDarkness' in Imagining India (New York: St. Mar• tin's Press, 1989), pp. 103-13. Vivek Dhareshwar, 'Self-fashioning, Colonial Habitus, and Double Exclusion: V. S. Naipaul's The Mimic Men', Criticism, 31:1 (Winter 1989), 75-102. Nan Doerksen, 'In a Free State and Nausea', World Literature Written in English, 20 (1981), 105-13. Joseph Epstein, 'A Cottage for Mr Naipaul', The New Criterion, 6:2 (October 1987),6-15. Michel Fabre, 'By Words Possessed: The Education of Mr Biswas as a Writer', Commonwealth Essays and Studies (Dijon), 9: 1 (Autumn 1986), 59-61. Martin Fido, 'A Bend in the River', Bim, 17: 66-7 Gune 1983), 129-32. Graham Huggan, 'Anxieties of Influence: Conrad in the Caribbean', Common• wealth, 11:1 (Autumn 1988), 1-12. Trevor Ludema, 'Defending CLR James', Trinidad Guardian, 1 November 1970, p. 5. Gloria Lynn, 'A Thing Called Art: The Mimic Men', Carib, No.2 (1981), 66-77. Bruce MacDonald, 'The Birth of Mr Biswas', Journal of Commonwealth Litera• ture, 11:3 (1977), 50-4. Melina Nathan, 'V. S. Naipaul's The Enigma of Arrival', New Voices [Trinidad] 18:35/36 (March-September 1990), 43-67. Michael Neill, 'Guerrillas and the Gangs: Frantz Fanon and V. S. Naipaul', Arie~ 13:4 (1982), 21-62. Kenneth Ramchand, 'A House for Mr Biswas', An Introduction to the Study of West Indian Literature (Kingston: Nelson Caribbean, 1976), pp. 73-90. Arnold Rampersad, 'V. S. Naipaul: Turning in the South', Raritan, 10.1 (Summer 1990), 24-39. Victor J. Ramraj, 'V. S. Naipaul: The Irrelevance of Nationalism', World Litera• ture Written in English, 23:1 (Winter 1984),187-96. Geoffrey Riley, 'Echoes of Wells in Naipaul's A House for Mr Biswas', Notes and Q}teries, 36 (234):2 Gune 1989), 208-9. Gordon Rohlehr [interviewed by Selwyn Cudjoe], 'Talking about Naipaul', Carib, No.2 (1981),39-65. Richard I. Smyer, 'Naipaul's A Bend in the River: Fiction and the Post-colonial Tropics', The Literary Half Yearly, 25:1 Ganuary 1984), 55-65. Sara Suleri, 'Naipaul'sArrival', The YaleJournal ofCriticism, 2:1 (Fall 1988), 25- 50. Thorell Tsomondo, 'Metaphor, Metonymy and Houses: Figures of Construc• tion in A House for Mr Biswas', World Literature Written in English, 29:2 (Autumn 1989),69-82. Derek Walcott, 'The Achievement ofV. S. Naipaul', Sunday Guardian [Trini• dad], 12 April 1964, p. 15. Derek Walcott, 'The Garden Path', TheNewRepublic, 13 April 1987, pp. 27-31. Index

Abdul Malik see de Freitas BBC 6, 14, 19, 158 Achebe, Chinua 1,14,32,36,118, Barbados 15, 149 129 Barrat, Harold 160 Adventures of Gurudeva 14, 158 Beacon, The 13 Aeneid 123, 125, 127, 129, 131 Bend in the Ganges, A 133, 160 Africa 4,10,11,12,27,56,66,70, Bend in the River, A 8,25,71,83, 84,85,86,87,89,90,91,116, 106,116,117-35,139,141,149, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 160 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, Benson, Gale 102, 103, 110 132, 135, 141, 149, 156, 157, 160 bildungsroman 30 African-Americans 26, 66, 70, 85, Bissoondath, Neil 5 87,90,91,92,99,100,102,103, black nationalism 7, 11, 12, 23, 129, 149, 150, 157 117,118,132,156,158,160 allegories 40, 41, 46, 52, 74, 88, Black Power 7, 8, 23, 76, 99, 100, 94, 113, 125, 133, 139, 141, 142, 102, 103, 104, 106, 145, 160 145, 146 Blakemore, Steven 160 Amerindians 68,80, 110 'Bogart' 17, 18, 19, 24 Amin,Idi 104, 128 Boxill, Anthony 159 Among the &lieuers 8, 126, 137 Boyers, Robert 98, 160 Anguilla 98 Brahmin 9, 10, 25, 34 anti-epic 81, 113 Bronte, Charlotte 111 Antigua 149 Bronte, Emily III Arabs 84,117,119,121,122,124, Buddhist 129 125, 126, 129, 131, 132, 148 Butler, Uriah 29, 76, 154, 159 Area of Darkness, An 7,49,56, 61-4,68, 141, 145, 150 Argentina 105, 133 calypsos 26 Annah, Kwei 32, 118 Camus, Albert 15, 56, 59, 70, 85, AJyan 6, 70, 73, 75, 77, 133, 134, 120, 129 135 Canada 16,82,108,110,122,129, Austen, Jane 58 131 Australia 16 Cannery Row 19 autobiographical 2, 3, 7, 8, 9, 12, Capildeo, Rudranath 5, 29, 76, 36,38,46,48,49,50,54,58,67, 154, 155, 159 68, 70, 71, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 86, Capildeo, Simbhoonath 5, 29, 76, 87,89,94,95,98,105,107,109, 154, 159 114, 121, 122, 134, 135, 137, 138, Caribbean 3,4,6,47,52,53,54, 139, 140, 143, 145, 146, 147, 152, 66,68,69,70,75,76,98,104, 153, 154 110, 113, 115, 117, 157, 160

165 166 Index

Carmichel, Stokely 100 EastAfrica 84,90,116,117,121, Carnival 19,35, 100 122, 123, 126, 127, 131, 132, 141, caste 9, 11,26,40,45,62,70, 124, 156 132, 151 Egypt 84, 89, 94, 95, 96, 97 Castro, Fidel 99, 100, 104 Eliot, T. S. 57, 71, 72, 78, 79, 113, 'Caution' 28 134, 145 Chaguanas 5, 6, 153 Ellison, Ralph 74,78,87,88, 104 character sketches 20, 21, 22, 58, Empire Writes Back, The 15-16, 158 110,114 Empson, William 88 Chinese 83, 89, 98, 104, 105, 108, England 1,4, 7, 8, 9, 11, 13, 14, 117 15,16,24,25,26,29,49,54,55, Chirico, Giorgio de 144 56,58,59,68,70,73,74,75,76, Christianity 11, 22, 23, 35, 44, 45, 78,79,80,82,83,84,86,87,90, 65,99,125,127,150,156,159 93, 104, 106, 108, 112, 113, 122, Cipriani, Arthur 29 126, 135, 137, 140, 141, 143, 145, cities 11, 41, 43, 44, 50, 52, 60, 68, 146, 149, 154, 155, 156, 157 72,83,85,86,90,126,148 Enigma of Arrival, The 3, 9, 27, 49, Clarissa 107 57, 69, 80, 134, 135, 138-49 Cobham, Rhonda 158 epic 36,43,80, 123, 124, 125, 127, Commonwealth Short Stories 159 133 Congo Diary, A 8, 116--17 'Epilogue' (In a Free State) 85, 89, Conrad, Joseph 8,84,119,126, 95-6 127, 132 epilogues 5,50,51,87, 112, 143 'Conrad's Darkness' 116 existential 15, 39, 55, 56, 59, 60, Constable, John 148 61,69,85,88,92,131,134,142 'Coward, The' 24 Eyre, M. Banning 98,160 Cronin, Richard 159 cyclical history 10, 75--6, 84, 88, Fanon,Frantt 104,107,112,114- 110, 121-3, 126, 130, 134, 141, 15,117,125,126,132,135,160 142, 144, 149 fantasy 5, 9, 17, 18, 20, 22, 23, 24, 42,52,58,66,70,77,78,99,100, 103,105,106,109,111,112,114, Dante 127, 128, 160 115, 124, 126, 146 Davis, Basil 100 fatalism 5,9, 16, 26, 28, 43, 54, 56, de Freitas, Michael eX') 8, 99, 60,61,68,92,151 102, 103, 104, 113 Finding the Centre 9, 17, 136--8 Democratic Labour Party 76, 77, Flag on the Island, A 7, 65-6 154, 159 'Flag on the Island, A' 7, 65-6 depressions 6,37,38,43,61, 72, France 7, 113 73,82,138,142,143 freedom 8,9,10,18,26,45--6,54, Dhareshwar, Vivek 159 66,67,75,76,83-99, Ill, 119, dharma 89 135, 141, 142, 143, 148-52 Dhondy, Farrukh 160 Froude, James 52 Dickens, Charles 29,47,48, 78, 146 Gandhi, Indira 8 Doerksen, Nan 160 garden symbolism 38, 50, 143, Dominica 13 144, 145, 146, 148 doubling 77, 126, 148 Germans 78, 95 Dubliners 19, 27 Gomes, Albert 13,29,76, 154, 155 Index 167 Greece 94, 123, 126 'In a Free State' 8, 85-8, 89-91, Greene, Graham 78,113,128, 96, 101, 105, 145, 157, 160 129, 132, 160 In a Free State 3, 8, 10, 80, 82, 83- Grenada 19 97, 137, 141 Guerrillas 8, 10, 23, 25, 83, 85, 99- indentured labour 11, 40, 80, 98, 115, 124, 132, 137, 149, 160 140, 145, 149, 151, 154 Gulliver's Travels 74 India 2, 4, 6--11, 26, 27, 43, 54, 56, Gurudeva and Other Indian Tales 5, 60,61-4,68,70,80,84,86,89, 14 98, 121, 131, 133, 137, 141, 145, Guyana 11,12,52,53,67,70,76, 148, 151, 152, 159 156, 157 India: A Million Mutinies 9, 10, 136, 150-2 Haiti 7, 53, 81 India: A Wounded Civilization 8, 89, Hardy, Thomas 11, 112, 146, 148 159, 160 Hearne,John 13 Indian diaspora 11, 15, 31, 40, 50, Heart ofDarkness, The 90,126,127 53,62,68,72,80,83,86,88,90, Heart of the Matter, The 128,129, 91,98, 122, 127, 154-8, 160 160 Indian-Negro conflicts 6,7, 10- Hindi 1, 11, 31, 68 12,15,41,52,53,67,70,72,76, Hindu 5,6,10,11,12,26,28,30, 77,88,91,98,122,127,154-8, 32,33,35,40,45,55,65,72,73, 160 75,82,91,93,129,153,156 Invisible Man, The 74,87,88,92 'His Chosen Calling' 26 Islam 4, 10, 11, 12, 32-5, 84, 121, history 4, 10, 11, 15,26,27,29,31, 122, 126, 151, 156 38,46,48-50,54,55,62,67,68, Ivory Coast 9 71,72,77,78,80,81,84,101, 110, 116, 118, 119, 122, 124, 125, Jamaica 32, 52, 100, 113 129, 133, 134, 137, 140, 142, 143, Jamal, Hakin 102, 103 145, 149, 150, 151, 160 James, C. L. R. 13, 156 Hobbes, Thomas 61,79,82,87, James, Henry 136 127, 130 Jane Eyre 111,113 House for Mr Biswas, A 6--7,14,25, Japan 9 35,36--52,55,56,60,61,66,72, Jews 75,110 74, 120, 130, 137, 139, 142, 149, Jones, Inigo 78 153-5, 159 Jonson,Ben 35,49,78 house symbolism 9, 18, 37, 38, 40, Joyce, James 14,19,40,46,134, 42,43,45,49,50,51,52,55,61, 139, 145 75,77, 78, 79, 101, 110, 118, 119, Kashmir 56,61,74, 150 131, 142, 143, 145, 148, 149, 159 Kenya 90 Howard's End 40,49 King, Bruce 50, 158, 159, 160 human will 10, 15, 28, 43, 45, 54, King Lear 38, 39, 40, 120, 159 55,64,69,81,92,120,130,140, 143, 149, 151, 152 L 'Enfant Noir 27 L'Entranger 56,57,59 imperialism 1, 2, 10, 15, 45, 53, La Guerre,John 160 71,77,81,83,84,89,94,96,99, La Chute 70, 76 101, 102, 109, 111-13, 116--19, La Vita Nuova 127 121-3, 125, 126, 129, 130, 132-5, Lamming, George 13, 159 140, 145-8, 157 Laye, Camara 27 168 Index Lebanese 95, 97 80,93,99,105,106,112,117, life of writer 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 16, 38, 118, 133, 135, 146, 159 54,55,57,58,60,61,68-9,71, mirror symbolism 38, 85, 92 73,74,82,86,140,143 Mississippi 150 literary models 3, 12, 37-40, 42, Mittelholzer, Edgar 13, 15 43,46,47,50,52,58,71,74, Mobutu 8, 104, 113, 117 78-80,87,90,102,105,109,111, Mr Polly 58, 159 123-9, 132-5, 139, 140, 146, 147, Mr Stone and the Knights 149, 151, 160 Companion 7,56-61,63 London 6,7,13,19,38,47,58, Mukherjee, Bharati 98, 160 63,66,68,72,73,74,77,84,101, Mulele, Pierre 125 102, 105, 108, 115, 119, 120, 121, Murthy, U. R. Amantha 88, 89, 123, 125, 126, 127, 130, 131, 133, 160 135, 139, 140, 147, 148 'My Aunt Gold Teeth' 65 Loss of El Dorado, The 4, 7, 80-2, Mystic Masseur, The 6, 13,28-31, 86, 135, 144, 145 66,67,137,154 Lovelace, Earl 23, 159 Nabokov, V. 73 MacDonald, Scott 160 Naipaul, Seepersad 1,5, 7, 14, 15, Mahatma Gandhi 9,63 38,42,46,73,76,77,122,140, Malgonkar, Manohar 133, 160 142, 153, 158 'Man-man' 19-24,50-1, 101 Naipaul, Shiva 5, 114 Mann, Thomas 139 Narayan, R. K. 10 Mansfield Park 40, 49 national independence 6, 10-12, Mao, ZeDong 99, 104, 106, 112, 23,26,28,32,46,52,53,65,67, 117 71,75-7,80,83,84,86,88-90, marriage 6, 9, 11, 55, 60, 68, 69, 96,98,99,112,115,117-18,122, 74,85,93,110,111,121,124, 126, 132, 133, 151, 152, 154, 156 131, 132 Negroes 1, 23, 30, 32, 52, 53, 66, Martinique 52, 53, 68 75,77,80,81,98,99,102,104 Marvell, Andrew 78 Neill, Michael 125, 160 Marxism 11, 117, 126, 132, 154, 'New King of the Congo, A' 8, 156 116, 117, 125 Maugham, Somerset 84, 86, 96 New Statesman 6, 154 Mauritius 98 New Zealand 16 McKay, Claude 13 Nigeria 129 Medwick, Cathleen 160 Ngugi wa Thiong'o 118 Mendes, Alfred 13 'Michael X' 8, 99, 102 'One Out of Many' 85-7, 89-91 Michael X see de Freitas 'Our Universal Civilization' 8, 158, Middle Passage, The 7,21,32,52-3, 160 55,68,106 outsiders 11,44,59,61,62,83,84, Miguel Street 6, 17-28, 106, 111, 88,94,101,104-6,110,113,122, 124 124, 140, 147 Mimic Men, The 7,49,64,66-80, Overcrowded Barracoon, The 8,98-9, 101, 119, 137, 138, 145, 147, 101 153-5, 159 Oxaal, Ivar 23, 158-60 mimicry 5,7,9, 19,21,22,30,32, Oxford University 1,6,38,73,76, 52,63,64,66,67,71,73,74,78, 147 Index 169

Paradise Lost 91 Riley, Geoffrey 159 People's National Movement 76, Roach, Eric 159 77, 154, 156, 159 Rohlehr, Gordon 74,159 Peron 104, 105, 113 Roman Empire 119, 124, 125, 127, picong 48 130, 131 'Plea for Rationality, A' 160 Roman history 71, 78, 124, 126 Pliny 123 Rowe-Evans, Adrian 160 politics 7, 11-12, 17, 20, 23, 28- Rushdie, Salman 160 32,34,45,48,52-4,66,67,69, Rwanda 90 70,72,74-8,83,87,90,98-100, Ryan, Selwyn 159, 160 115, 116, 118, 121, 122, 124, 128, 129, 131, 151, 154, 156-7, 159, Samaroo, Brinsley 160 160 Samskara 88, 160 Pollack, James 159 Sander, Reinhard 158 Port of Spain 6, 18, 19, 32, 41, 43, Sartre, Jean-Paul 15, 56, 69, 70, 76, 44,45,50,100,142,153,158 85, 160 Porter, Katherine Anne 94 Selvon, Samuel 13, 14 Portrait of the Artist, A 27,46,50, sex 13, 18, 25, 26, 44, 61, 63, 69, 71 70,72,73,75,77,78,84,86,88, 'Prologue to an Autobiography' 9, 90,93,96,97,98,101,102-7, 17,27,50,80,137-8,141 110, 112, 115, 120, 124, 125, 147 prologues 5,39,50,51,81,86,87, Shakespeare, William 34, 35, 38, 89,94,96 39 prose style 2, 19-20,47,50,57-8, Shiva 60, 134, 142 78,79,88,90,94,95, Ill, 136, slave owners 6, 1l0, 113 144 slave revolts 76 Proust, Marcel 14,40,46,71, 138, slavery 10, 56, 67, 81, 104, 121, 139 129, 149, 150 'Pyrotechnicist, The' 24 slaves 6, 11, 40, 52, 62, 80, 81, 98, 103, 113, 121, 129 Queen's Royal College 6, 154 social comedy 2, 14, 19,26,32, 35,56,58,65,85,86,90,91,92, Ramanujan, A. K. 10,160 124 &mayana 26, 133-5, 160 South Mrica 101, 108 Ramchand, Kenneth 158 South America 7, 53, 81, 110 Rampersad, Arnold 158 Soyinka, Wole 1, 14,32, 118 rebels 44,54,56,59,61,92,95, Spain 81, 110 97, 101, 120, 130 St Lucia 15 Reid, V. S. 32 Steinbeck,John 19 Return of Eva Peron, The 8, 99, 105, structure 2, 4, 5, 9, 18, 20-4, 34, 116 36,38,44,50,51,60,67,71, 'Return of Eva Peron, The' 8, 105, 74-8,87,89,93,95,98,108-10, 124 114, 118, 120, 131, 135, 138-40, revolutions 7, 79, 81, 99-102, 104, 142-6, 150 106, 1l0, 112, 115, 125, 126, 130, Stummer, Peter 158 133 sub texts to fiction 3, 12, 19, 39, Rhys,Jean 13,111, 113-14, 140, 58,60,71, 79, 80, 87, Ill, 113, 160 124-9, 133-5, 152 Richardson, Samuel 111,112 Suffrage of Elvira, The 6,28,31-5 170 Index

Surinam 52 Venezuela 100 symbolic names 33,66,67,77,95, Virgil 123, 131 101,102,111,113,121,124,127, 128, 146 Walcott, Derek 7, 13, 14, 15, 47, 104 'Tell Me Who to Kill' 86, 88-90, Waugh, Evelyn 8, 28, 49, 113 92-4 Welseyan University 126, 160 Thieme, John 158, 159 West Indian Federation 6, 154, 'Titus Hoyt,!. A.' 24, 25 156 Toure, Sekou 128 West Indian writing 6, 13, 39, 42, 'Tramp at Piraeus, The' 86,87, 66,69,158 89, 94-7 West Indies 7, 11-13, 23, 25, 26, treatment of time 20,26,49-51, 44,46,52,53,56,58,64,66,70, 67, 74, 110, 121, 138, 139, 144 79,80,82,90,92,93,98,102, Trinidad 1,3--17,19-22,25-35, 111,112,132,149 38-41,44,46,47,49,50,52-4, Whitaker, Ben 158 56, 61, 65, 67, 68, 70, 75, 77, White, Landeg 158, 160 80-2,86,99,100, 106, 110, 113, white liberals 10, 66, 83, 85, 86, 123, 129, 134, 137-9, 142, 145, 98, 101, 104, 106, 109, 115, 156 146, 149-51, 154, 156, 157, 160 White, Patrick 36 Trinidad 13 whites 5,6,8, 10-12, 14, 18,25, Turn in the South, A 9, 149-50 41,42,52,53,66-9,81,90,91, Tweedie, Jill 102, 103 93,98,101-8, Ill, 112, 114, 115, 150 Uganda 90, 131, 158 Wide Sargasso Sea 113 United States 7,9, 16, 17,26,27, Williams, Eric 11-12, 23, 52, 67, 41,52,53,65,66,81,83,84,88, 76, 114, 154-6, 158, 159 90-3, 98, 102, 106, 126, 130-2, Wiltshire 83, 135, 138, 140-5 147-9, 157, 158 'Without a Dog's Chance' 160 use offacts 4, 11, 19,22,26,29, Woodlanders, The 112 36,38,48,50,70,75,76,100, world as illusion 5, 10, 16,55,56, 102-3,110,117,125, 137, 139, 63,82,92,129,130 142, 146, 153--5, 158 Wright, Richard 104, 158 use of films 18, 26, 34, 90, 93, 95, writers in Naipaul's works 3,21, 106 31,39,42,47,57,66,73--4,104, use of narrator 2, 4, 18, 20, 26, 27, 107,109,111-15, 136, 137, 139, 46,48,59,66,67,70-2,80, 140, 143--5, 147-8 89-91,93,94,107,109,113,119, Wuthering Heights III 121, 126, 138, 139, 141-3, 146 Yeats, W. B. 134 varieties of English 2, 13, 21, 28, 31,34,66,79,86,88,90,93,111, Zaire 16,116,117,125,158 112, 114, 141, 146 Zanzibar 132