Between Father and Son Paperback by V.S. Naipaul

Product Details

• Publisher: Vintage Canada (2011-08-02)
• Language: English
• Paperback: 320 pages
• ISBN-13: 9780307401489
• Item Weight: 272.16 grams
• Dimensions: 8.0 x 5.18 x 0.68 cm

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 un-alloyed 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 went to England on a scholarship in 1950. After four years at University College, Oxford, he began to write, and since then he has followed no other profession. He has published more than twenty books of fiction and non-fiction, including A House for Mr. Biswas, A Bend in the River and A Turn in the South, and a collection of letters, Between Father and Son. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.