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Naipaul V S
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Naipaul est un artiste à part, inclassable. Il n'est associé à aucun mouvement ou courant de pensée, il ne se réclame pas d'un espace géographique ou d'une culture, il n'est pas davantage enfermé dans un genre littéraire. Avec Naipaul, il n'y a point de départ, juste un point d'arrivée : un écrivain sorti de nulle part afin de revendiquer le monde entier pour sujet. Voici réunis quatre de ses plus beaux ouvrages :
Dans un État libre (1971) : couronné par le Booker Prize, c'est un recueil de cinq romans sur les lendemains agités de l'indépendance dans un pays d'Afrique. Ce chef-d'oeuvre de la littérature postcoloniale contient tout Naipaul : le talent littéraire, la maîtrise d'un thème, la connaissance méticuleuse des faits qui forment sa chair et une lucidité de visionnaire de l'Histoire.
Guérilleros (1975) relate les lendemains de la déclaration d'indépendance dans une île des Caraïbes qui pourrait bien être la Jamaïque : des lendemains qui ne chantent pas, où ceux qui avaient rêvé de liberté et de justice se retrouvent impuissants et amers.
À la courbe du fleuve (1979) est l'un des plus grands livres jamais consacrés au continent africain, une peinture d'une impitoyable exactitude d'un État contemporain d'Afrique noire, avec ses luttes tribales, ses bidonvilles, ses fonctionnaires corrompus et l'incapacité du pouvoir central.
L'Énigme de l'arrivée (1987) : L'histoire d'un jeune homme qui s'est rendu en Angleterre depuis Trinidad afin d'étudier à l'université et qui s'établit à la campagne. À la fois fiction et non-fiction, confidence intime et portrait d'un monde qui se défait, c'est une rédemption au terme d'une vie passée à comprendre la marche mystérieuse des hommes et de leurs sociétés.
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Comme souvent chez Naipaul, tout commence dans un théâtre d'ombres pour, peu à peu, s'éclaircir sous la lumière brûlante de la vérité. « Je connais mon père et ma mère, mais je ne peux aller au-delà. Mon ascendance est brouillée » dit le descendant de cette obscurité, le fils d'immigrants indiens recrutés à partir des années 1860 dans l'Uttar Pradesh pour aboutir dans cette petite île poussiéreuse et dénuée d'histoires qu'est Trinidad. Nul dans sa famille n'y a de mémoire ni collective ni individuelle mais chacun porte en lui une trace de l'Inde mythique, même s'il ne la connaît pas : « Pour ces gens, l'Inde, le passé, avaient été balayés, comme le présent -Trinidad- était en passe de l'être. » Aussi ce bref récit peut-il prendre sa place parmi les livres indiens de Sir Vidia, les essais objectifs ou les romans inquiets, du reportage grouillant qu'était L'Inde (India : a million mutines now, 1990) jusqu'à son discours du Nobel sur la connaissance par l'écriture. Dépassant le cadre familial, abandonnant les silhouettes fragiles d'une famille déracinée, le voici décrivant les premières années de Ghandi, « petit homme émacié, la tête rasée, de grandes oreilles », un réfractaire aux clans, un pacifiste guerrier, un visionnaire qui veut réformer l'Inde « immobile, décrépite, cruelle. ». Mais l'Inde était-elle réformable ? Peut-on s'arracher à sa condition ? Peut-on gagner une place dans le monde ? Comment aller de la périphérie vers le centre ? Et au prix de quel sacrifice ? « Le monde est ce qu'il est » disait Naipaul, et il n'a de cesse de poser les mêmes questions, sans jamais accepter la sécurité des réponses.
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Homme de nulle part et donc de partout, romancier de combat et polémiste acerbe, V.
S. Naipaul, prix Nobel de littérature de langue anglaise et d'origine indienne, est avant tout un témoin libre. Ses fictions comme ses reportages portent un regard lucide et impitoyable sur le Tiers-Monde, n'épargnant aucune ombre dans leur sillage. Dans un Etat libre est un recueil de cinq textes passionnants, récits de voyage " vécus ", romans courts sur les lendemains agités de l'indépendance dans un pays qui ressemble à l'Afrique, mettant en scène ces Hindous de la diaspora que Naipaul connaît si bien.
Un témoignage dérangeant où se profitent, derrière l'impuissance des nouvelles nations à s'organiser librement, la violence et la misère, les tares et les dépravations de l'Occident d'aujourd'hui. " Ecrivain fasciné par le dénuement, partagé entre de multiples cultures, observateur, depuis des décennies, des crises et mutations affectant les sociétés indienne, africaine et caribéenne, Naipaul est vraisemblablement l'auteur contemporain juché sur le plus haut poste d'observation de la planète.
En cela, il est le plus universel. " Marc Trillard.
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Un drapeau sur l'île rassemble des récits écrits entre 1950 et 1965 dont certains ont été initialement publiés dans des périodiques américains. La plupart des histoires qui composent ce recueil ont pour cadre la Trinité et offrent une peinture humoristique des moeurs d'un milieu d'origine hindoue. Les anecdotes que Naipaul tire de la vie quotidienne et des situations familiales reposent sur les particularités ethniques qu'il note avec une grande exactitude. Certaines de ces nouvelles abordent également la terreur latente qui nourrit la vie ordinaire des immigrants londoniens, mais ne sont pas moins imprégnées de l'humour et du charme qui faisaient déjà la valeur de Miguel Street.
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Salim has spent most of his life on the east coast of Africa, living and working with his family. When he sets out to build a new life for himself, moving to an unnamed country in the heart of the continent, he believes he is doing so to fulfil his duty as a man. He buys a small shop in a sleepy town, at a bend in the river, where he sells sundries to the locals.
First published in 1979, A Bend in the River is V.S. Naipaul''s vivid exploration of post-colonial Africa at the time of independence. Serving as a microcosm of this changing world, his bend in the river is a scene of chaos, violent change, warring tribes, ignorance, isolation and poverty. And from this rich landscape emerges one of the author''s most potent works - a truly moving story of historical upheaval and social breakdown.
Now part of the Picador Collection, a series showcasing the very best of modern literature. -
Taking its title from the strangely frozen picture by the surrealist painter Giorgio de Chirico, The Enigma of Arrival tells the story of a young Indian from the Caribbean arriving in post-imperial England and consciously, over many years, finding himself as a writer. Part of the Macmillan Collector's Library, a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket-sized classics with gold-foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition is introduced by Harvard Professor, Maya Jasanoff.The Enigma of Arrival is the story of a journey, from one place to another, from the British colony of Trinidad to the ancient countryside of England, and from one state of mind to another, and is perhaps V. S. Naipaul's most autobiographical work. Alongside this he weaves a rich and complex web of invention and observation. Finding depth and pathos in the smallest moments - the death of a cottager, the firing of an estate's gardener - Naipaul also comprehends the bigger picture - watching as the old world is lost to the gradual but permanent changes wrought on the English landscape by the march of 'progress'. This is a moving and beautiful novel told with great dignity, compassion and candour.
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A classic of modern travel writing, An Area of Darkness is Nobel laureate V.S. Naipaul's profound reckoning with his ancestral homeland. Part of the Macmillan Collector's Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition is introduced by internationally acclaimed author Paul Theroux. 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 acceptance of poverty and squalor, and the conflict between its desire for self-determination and its nostalgia for the British raj. This may be the most elegant and passionate book ever written about the subcontinent.
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B>One of BBC's 100 Novels That Shaped Our World./b>Heart-rending and darkly comic, V. S. Naipaul's A House for Mr Biswas has been hailed as one of the twentieth century's finest novels, a classic that evokes a man's quest for autonomy against the backdrop of post-colonial Trinidad.Part of the Macmillan Collector's Library, a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket-sized classics with gold-foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition features an introduction by writer Teju Cole.Mr Biswas has been told since the day of his birth that misfortune will follow him - and so it has. Meaning only to avoid punishment, he causes the death of his father and the dissolution of his family. Wanting to flirt with a beautiful woman, he is bullied into an unhappy marriage with her. But in spite of endless setbacks, Mr Biswas is determined to achieve independence, and so he begins the gruelling struggle to buy a home of his own.
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In Half a Life we are introduced to the compelling figure of Willie Chandran. Springing from the unhappy union of a low-caste mother and a father constantly at odds with life, Willie is naively eager to find something that will place him both in and apart from the world. Drawn to England, and to the immigrant and bohemian communities of post-war London, it is only in his first experience of love that he finally senses the possibility of fulfilment.
In its humorous and sensitive vision of the half-lives quietly lived out at the centre of our world, V. S. Naipaul''s graceful novel brings its own unique illumination to essential aspects of our shared history.
Now part of the Picador Collection, a series showcasing the very best of modern literature.
''Parts are as sly and funny as anything Naipaul has written. Nobody who enjoys seeing English beautifully controlled should miss this novel'' - John Carey, Sunday Times -
V. S. Naipaul's Booker Prize winning novel about displacement, the yearning for the good place in someone else's land and the attendant heartache.Part of the Macmillan Collector's Library, a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket-sized classics with gold-foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition is introduced by acclaimed author, Robert McCrum. In a Free State first tells the story of an Indian servant in Washington, who becomes an American citizen but feels he has ceased to be a part of the flow. Then of a disturbed Asian West Indian in London who, in jail for murder, has never really known where he is. Then the central novel moves to Africa, to a fictional country somewhere like Uganda or Rwanda. The novel's central characters once found Africa liberating, but now it has gone sour on them. The land is no longer safe, and at a time of tribal conflict they have to make the long drive to the safety of their compound. At the end of this drive - the narrative tight, wonderfully constructed, the formal and precise language always instilled with violence and rage - we know everything about the English characters, the African country and the Idi Amin-like future awaiting it. This is one of V. S. Naipaul's greatest novels, hard but full of pity.
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Miguel Street, V. S. Naipaul's first written work of fiction, is set in a derelict corner of Port of Spain, Trinidad, during World War Two and is narrated by an unnamed, precociously observant neighbourhood boy. We are introduced to a galaxy of characters, from Popo the carpenter, who neglects his livelihood to build 'the wild thing without a name', to Man-man, who goes from running for public office to staging his own crucifixion, and the dreaded Big-Foot, the bully with glass tear ducts. As well as the lovely Mrs Hereira, in thrall to her monstrous husband. V. S. Naipaul writes with prescient wisdom and crackling wit about the lives and legends that make up Miguel Street: a living theatre, a world in microcosm, a cacophony of sights, sounds and smells - all seen through the eyes of a fatherless boy. The language, the idioms and the observations are priceless and timeless and Miguel Street overflows with life on every page. This is an astonishing novel about hope, despair, poverty and laughter; and an enchanting and exuberant tribute to V. S. Naipaul's childhood home.
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Heart-rending and darkly comic, V. S. Naipaul''s A House for Mr Biswas has been hailed as one of the twentieth century''s finest novels, a classic that evokes a man''s quest for autonomy against the backdrop of post-colonial Trinidad. Mr Biswas has been told since the day of his birth that misfortune will follow him - and so it has. Meaning only to avoid punishment, he causes the death of his father and the dissolution of his family. Wanting to flirt with a beautiful woman, he is bullied into an unhappy marriage with her. But in spite of endless setbacks, Mr Biswas is determined to achieve independence, and so he begins the gruelling struggle to buy a home of his own.
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Naipaul's controversial account of his travels through the Islamic world was hailed by The New Republic as "the most notable work on contemporary Islam to have appeared in a very long time."