Hello banchan,
And thanks for your question.
I found several possibilties while searching for naipaul as the
subject of a book, rather than author, at Amazon. One likely candidate
is:
Sir Vidia's Shadow
Paul Theroux
Format: Paperback, 364pp.
ISBN: 0618001999
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company
Pub. Date: January 2001
Edition Desc: 1ST MARINE
From the Publisher
This heartfelt and revealing account of Paul Theroux's thirty-year
friendship with the legendary V. S. Naipaul is an intimate record of a
literary mentorship that traces the growth of both writers' careers
and explores the unique effect each had on the other. Built around
exotic landscapes, anecdotes that are revealing, humorous, and
melancholy, and three decades of mutual history, this is a personal
account of how one develops as a writer and how a friendship waxes and
wanes between two men who have set themselves on the perilous journey
of a writing life.
From the Critics
From Boston Globe
A compact, provocative gem of a novel.
From Washington Post
Vigorous and evocative . . . the kind of story you force yourself to
savor slowly though you're dying to find out what happens next.
From Times Literary Supplement
Both unputdownable and utterly engaging.
I believe this satisifies all of your criteria as it was published in
2001 and the author was a close and long time friend of Naipaul.
A collection of letters, as you mentioned might be this book:
Between Father and Son: Family Letters
V. S. Naipaul Gillon R. Aitken
Format: Hardcover, 1st ed., 352pp.
ISBN: 0375407308
Publisher: Knopf Alfred A
Pub. Date: December 1999
Edition Desc: 1 AMER ED
ABOUT THIS ITEM
Description from The Reader's Catalog
A son graced with immense literary talent waits anxiously and
impatiently in England for his career to begin. A father lives out his
last years with literary aspirations of his own, but only vicarious
successes. A sister feels displaced while away at school in India.
These are the correspondences between V.S. Naipaul and his family
members and they provide an unforgettable account of the burden of
young genius and the love between father and son.|
From the Publisher
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.
And one other title appears a possibility:
Naipaul's Truth: The Making of a Writer
Lillian Feder
Format: Hardcover, 269pp.
ISBN: 0742508080
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Pub. Date: January 2001
ABOUT THIS ITEM
From the Publisher
"V. S. Naipaul once described his purpose as an author as nothing less
than a "commitment to deliver the truth." One of the world's greatest,
and most controversial, living writers, he has written extensively
about the enduring economic, cultural, and psychological effects of
colonialism, particularly its assaults on individual identity. In
Naipaul's Truth, Lillian Feder, noted author of several classic works
of literary criticism, explores Naipaul's writings to deliver an
original and beautifully written analysis of her subject. Feder
describes Naipaul's methods for discovering the truth about himself
and the world he explores, and she concludes that Naipaul's literature
has rightfully earned a place in the upper echelons of the modern
canon. Simultaneously an intellectual biography and a revealing
psychological portrait of the artist, Naipaul's Truth is a masterpiece
of literary biography."--BOOK JACKET.
From the Critics
From Library Journal
Though he has practiced his craft in many genres--fiction, travel
narratives, journalism, memoirs--Naipaul once remarked that he was
"really writing one big book." Critic Feder (emerita, English, CUNY)
engages in a search for the keys to the meanings in Naipaul's work.
She contends that the pervasive theme is Naipaul's "search for truth,
an inner narrative of self-creation disclosed in the first or third
person." Combining theoretical, biographical, and psychological
approaches, Feder performs close critical readings of Naipaul's novels
and his nonfiction, contending that he clearly deserves to be
recognized as a modern literary master because his works are so
complex and ambiguous. Yet Feder's book rests on a simplistic
thesis--the search for truth expressed in a particular narrative
form--that can easily be applied to any modern writer, if not all
writers. Moreover, her prose is uninspiring and her insights
unoriginal. Although large academic libraries will want to own this
for students writing on Naipaul, it is otherwise not
recommended.--Henry L. Carrigan Jr., Lancaster, PA Copyright 2001
Cahners Business Information.
I strongly suspect, though, that Sir Vidia's Shadow by Paul Theroux is
the book you are recalling.
I hope this has helped you to find the book you desire.
Best regards,
-=clouseau-ga=- |
,
0 Comments
)