AN AREA OF DARKNESS is V.S. Naipaul's semi-autobiographical account - at once painful and hilarious, always concerned - of his first visit to India, the land of his forbears. From the moment of his inauspicious arrival in Prohibition-dry Bombay, bearing whisky and cheap brandy, he began to experience a sense of 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 by turns tender, lyrical, explosive and cruel. With spectacular narrative skill, Naipaul provides a revelation both of India and of himself: a displaced person who paradoxically possesses a stronger sense of place than almost anyone.
'A masterpiece of travel-writing' Paul Theroux
'Brilliant' Observer
- ISBN10 0330487167
- ISBN13 9780330487160
- Publish Date 10 May 2002 (first published December 1964)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 18 April 2011
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Pan Macmillan
- Imprint Picador
- Format Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
- Pages 304
- Language English