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The World Is What It Is: The Authorized Biography of V. S. Naipaul
by Patrick French
- Used
- Hardcover
- first
- Condition
- Very Good+/Very Good+
- ISBN 10
- 1400044057
- ISBN 13
- 9781400044054
- Seller
-
Wake Forest , North Carolina, United States
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
First American edition/first printing. Square spine, clean crisp pages, no writing or marks, no folded page corners. Dust jacket clean with no rips or creases. Not a remainder or book club printing.
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
- Seller
- Universe Of Books
(US)
- Seller's Inventory #
- 230407-8
- Title
- The World Is What It Is: The Authorized Biography of V. S. Naipaul
- Author
- Patrick French
- Book Condition
- Used - Very Good+
- Jacket Condition
- Very Good+
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Binding
- Hardcover
- ISBN 10
- 1400044057
- ISBN 13
- 9781400044054
- Publisher
- Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
- Place of Publication
- New York
- Date Published
- 2008-11-04
Terms of Sale
Universe Of 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
Universe Of Books
Biblio member since 2017
Wake Forest , North Carolina
About Universe Of Books
We have been selling online on various platforms since 2009 since closing our physical location. We joined Biblio in 2016 and strive to provide you with hard to find first editions and out of print titles.
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Spine
- The outer portion of a book which covers the actual binding. The spine usually faces outward when a book is placed on a shelf....
- Remainder
- Book(s) which are sold at a very deep discount to alleviate publisher overstock. Often, though not always, they have a remainder...
- Jacket
- Sometimes used as another term for dust jacket, a protective and often decorative wrapper, usually made of paper which wraps...
- Crisp
- A term often used to indicate a book's new-like condition. Indicates that the hinges are not loosened. A book described as crisp...
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