I was eleven, no more, when the wish came to me to be a writer; and then very soon it was a settled ambition. But for the young V. S. Naipaul, there was a great distance between the wish and its fulfillment. To become a writer, he would have to find ways of understanding three very different cultures: his family's half-remembered Indian homeland, the West Indian colonial society in which he grew up, and the wholly foreign world of the English novels he read. In this essay of literary autobiography, V. S. Naipaul sifts ...
Read More
I was eleven, no more, when the wish came to me to be a writer; and then very soon it was a settled ambition. But for the young V. S. Naipaul, there was a great distance between the wish and its fulfillment. To become a writer, he would have to find ways of understanding three very different cultures: his family's half-remembered Indian homeland, the West Indian colonial society in which he grew up, and the wholly foreign world of the English novels he read. In this essay of literary autobiography, V. S. Naipaul sifts through memories of his childhood in Trinidad, his university days in England, and his earliest attempts at writing, seeking the experiences of life and reading that shaped his imagination and his growth as a writer. He pays particular attention to the traumas of India under its various conquerors and the painful sense of dereliction and loss that shadows writers' attempts to capture the country and its people in prose. Naipaul's profound reflections on the relations between personal or historical experience and literary form, between the novel and the world, reveal how he came to discover both his voice and the subjects of his writing, and how he learned to turn sometimes to fiction, sometimes to the travel narrative, to portray them truthfully. Along the way he offers insights into the novel's prodigious development as a form for depicting and interpreting society in the nineteenth century and its diminishing capacity to do the same in the twentieth???a task that, in his view, passed to the creative energies of the early cinema. As a child trying to read, I had felt that two worlds separated me from the books that were offered to me at school and in the libraries: the childhood world of our remembered India, and the more colonial world of our city. ... What I didn't know, even after I had written my early books of fiction ... was that those two spheres of darkness had become my subject. Fiction, working its mysteries, by indirections finding directions out, had led me to my subject. But it couldn't take me all the way. -V.S. Naipaul, from Reading & Writing
Read Less
Add this copy of Reading and Writing: a Personal Account to cart. $3.99, very good condition, Sold by Wonder Book - Member ABAA/ILAB rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Frederick, MD, UNITED STATES, published 2000 by New York Review of Books.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Very Good. Very Good condition. Good dust jacket. A copy that may have a few cosmetic defects. May also contain light spine creasing or a few markings such as an owner's name, short gifter's inscription or light stamp.
Add this copy of Reading and Writing: a Personal Account to cart. $4.24, very good condition, Sold by HPB-Diamond rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Dallas, TX, UNITED STATES, published 2000 by New York Review Books.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Very good. Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used books may not include companion materials, and may have some shelf wear or limited writing. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority!
Add this copy of Reading & Writing: a Personal Account to cart. $6.49, fair condition, Sold by Magers and Quinn Booksellers rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Minneapolis, MN, UNITED STATES, published 2000 by New York Review of Books.
Add this copy of Reading and Writing: a Personal Account (New York to cart. $7.50, good condition, Sold by Dorley House Books rated 3.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Hagerstown, MD, UNITED STATES, published 2000 by New York Review Books.
Add this copy of Reading and Writing: a Personal Account to cart. $7.99, good condition, Sold by St. Vinnie's Books rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Eugene, OR, UNITED STATES, published 2000 by New York Review of Books.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Good. EX-library book. The book may have identifying marks, stamps, stickers, etc...Former Library book. hardcover 100% of proceeds go to charity! Good condition with all pages in tact. Item shows signs of use and may have cosmetic defects.
Add this copy of Reading and Writing: a Personal Account to cart. $8.00, like new condition, Sold by Powell's Books Chicago rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Chicago, IL, UNITED STATES, published 2000 by New York Review of Books.
Add this copy of Reading and Writing: a Personal Account to cart. $8.00, very good condition, Sold by Powell's Books Chicago rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Chicago, IL, UNITED STATES, published 2000 by New York Review of Books.
Add this copy of Reading and Writing, a Personal Account to cart. $8.00, like new condition, Sold by Adventures Underground, LLC rated 3.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Richland, WA, UNITED STATES, published 2000 by New York Review of Books.
Add this copy of Reading & Writing: a Personal Account to cart. $9.07, like new condition, Sold by Magers and Quinn Booksellers rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Minneapolis, MN, UNITED STATES, published 2000 by New York Review of Books.
Add this copy of Reading and Writing: a Personal Account to cart. $10.11, good condition, Sold by SurplusTextSeller rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Columbia, MO, UNITED STATES, published 2000 by New York Review of Books.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Good. Ships in a BOX from Central Missouri! May not include working access code. Will not include dust jacket. Has used sticker(s) and some writing or highlighting. UPS shipping for most packages, (Priority Mail for AK/HI/APO/PO Boxes).
