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In a Free State

Hardback

Main Details

Title In a Free State
Authors and Contributors      By (author) V. S. Naipaul
SeriesMacmillan Collector's Library
Physical Properties
Format:Hardback
Pages:304
Dimensions(mm): Height 156,Width 101
Category/GenreModern and contemporary fiction (post c 1945)
African history
Travel writing
ISBN/Barcode 9781529013030
ClassificationsDewey:823.914
Audience
General
Tertiary Education (US: College)
Professional & Vocational

Publishing Details

Publisher Pan Macmillan
Imprint Macmillan Collector's Library
Publication Date 20 August 2020
Publication Country United Kingdom

Description

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 tells the story first of an Indian servant in Washington, who becomes an American citizen but feels displaced. 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 a fictional African country. There, the central characters have to make the long drive to the safety of their compound. By the end of this drive we know everything about the English characters, the African country and the Idi Amin-like future awaiting it.

Author Biography

V. S. Naipaul was born in Trinidad in 1932. He came to England on a scholarship in 1950. He spent four years at University College, Oxford, and began to write, in London, in 1954. He pursued no other profession. His novels include A House for Mr Biswas, The Mimic Men, Guerrillas, A Bend in the River, and The Enigma of Arrival. In 1971 he was awarded the Booker Prize for In a Free State. His works of non-fiction, equally acclaimed, include Among the Believers, Beyond Belief, The Masque of Africa, and a trio of books about India: An Area of Darkness, India: A Wounded Civilization and India: A Million Mutinies Now. In 1990, V. S. Naipaul received a knighthood for services to literature; in 1993, he was the first recipient of the David Cohen British Literature Prize. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2001. He lived with his wife Nadira and cat Augustus in Wiltshire, and died in 2018.

Reviews

A book 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 -- Dennis Potter * The Times * Naipaul's travel writing is perhaps the most important body of work of its kind in the second half of the century -- Martin Amis