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The World Is What It Is: The Authorized Biography of V.S. Naipaul
by French, Patrick
- Used
- Hardcover
- first
- Condition
- Very Good+/Very Good, Not Price Clipped
- ISBN 10
- 0330433504
- ISBN 13
- 9780330433501
- Seller
-
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
London, England: Picador, 2008. Book. Very Good+. Hardcover. British First. Complete number line from 1 to 9; some edge wear to dust jacket; otherwise a solid, clean copy with no marking or underlining; collectible condition; illustrated with both black and white and colour photographs;.
Synopsis
Since V. S. Naipaul left his Caribbean birthplace at the age of seventeen, his improbable life has followed the global movement of peoples, whose preeminent literary chronicler he has become. In The World Is What It Is, Patrick French offers the first authoritative biography of the controversial Nobel laureate, whose only stated ambition was greatness as a writer, in pursuit of which goal nothing else was sacred.Beginning with a richly detailed portrait of Naipaul's childhood in colonial Trinidad, French gives us the boy born to an Indian family, the displaced soul in a displaced community, who by dint of talent and ambition finds the only imaginable way out: a scholarship to Oxford. London in the 1950s offers hope and his first literary success, but homesickness and depression almost defeat Vidia, his narrow escape aided by Patricia Hale, an Englishwoman who will devote herself to his work and well-being. She will stand by him, sometimes tenuously, for more than four decades, even as Naipaul embarks on a twenty-four-year affair, which will awaken half-dead passions and feed perhaps his greatest wave of dizzying creativity. Amid this harrowing emotional life, French traces the course of the fierce visionary impulse underlying Naipaul's singular power, a gift to produce masterpieces of fiction and nonfiction.Informed by exclusive access to V. S. Naipaul's private papers and personal recollections, and by great feeling for his formidable body of work, French's revelatory biography does full justice to an enigmatic genius.From the Hardcover edition.
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Details
- Bookseller
- Hourglass Books
(CA)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 019314
- Title
- The World Is What It Is: The Authorized Biography of V.S. Naipaul
- Author
- French, Patrick
- Format/Binding
- Hardcover
- Book Condition
- Used - Very Good+
- Jacket Condition
- Very Good, Not Price Clipped
- Edition
- British First
- ISBN 10
- 0330433504
- ISBN 13
- 9780330433501
- Publisher
- Picador
- Place of Publication
- London, England
- Date Published
- 2008
- Keywords
- Literary Biography
Terms of Sale
Hourglass Books
30 day return guarantee, with full refund including original shipping costs for up to 30 days after delivery if an item arrives misdescribed or damaged.
About the Seller
Hourglass Books
Biblio member since 2018
Vancouver, British Columbia
About Hourglass Books
I list a wide range of materials from both modern firsts to antiquarian books.
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Number Line
- A series of numbers appearing on the copyright page of a book, where the lowest number generally indicates the printing of that...
- Good+
- A term used to denote a condition a slight grade better than Good.
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