Between Father and Son: Family Letters (Paperback)

Between Father and Son: Family Letters By V. S. Naipaul Cover Image
$13.00
Email or call for price

Description


An “extraordinary rich correspondence” (The New York Times Book Review) between a seventeen-year-old aspiring writer at Oxford who would go on to become a Nobel Prize winning author and his sacrificing, beloved father. 

At seventeen, V.S. Naipaul wanted to "follow no other profession" but writing. Awarded a scholarship by the Trinidadian government, he set out to attend Oxford, where he encountered a vastly different world from the one he yearned to leave behind. Separated from his family by continents, and grappling with depression, financial strain, loneliness, and dislocation, "Vido" bridged the distance with a faithful correspondence that began shortly before the young man's two-week journey to England and ended soon after his father's death four years later.

Here, for the first time, we have the opportunity to read this profoundly moving correspondence, which illuminates with unalloyed candor the relationship between a sacrificing father and his determined son as they encourage each other to persevere with their writing. For though his father's literary aspirations would go unrealized, Naipaul's triumphant career would ultimately vindicate his beloved mentor's legacy.

About the Author


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 BiswasThe Mimic MenGuerrillasA 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 nonfiction, equally acclaimed, include Among the BelieversBeyond BeliefThe Masque of Africa, and a trio of books about India: An Area of DarknessIndia: 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 died in 2018.

Praise For…


“An extraordinary rich correspondence.”
—The New York Times Book Review

"A telling portrait of the artist as a young man [and] a fascinating map to the autobiographical underpinnings of what is arguably Mr. Naipaul's finest novel, A House for Mr. Biswas."
—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

"A narrative that never palls: We are enthralled as by a compelling epistolary novel."
—The Washington Post

"Shocking...Captivating...The Naipaul family letters speak eloquently of loneliness and deracination, but at the heart of the book is a very moving story about becoming a writer."
—The Boston Globe
Product Details
ISBN: 9780375707261
ISBN-10: 0375707263
Publisher: Vintage
Publication Date: March 13th, 2001
Pages: 320
Language: English