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In a Free State

(Hardback)

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Publishing Details

Full Title:

In a Free State

Contributors:

By (Author) V.S. Naipaul

ISBN:

9781529013030

Publisher:

Pan Macmillan

Imprint:

Macmillan Collector's Library

Publication Date:

10th November 2020

UK Publication Date:

20th August 2020

Country:

United Kingdom

Classifications

Readership:

General

Genre:
Fiction/Non-fiction:

Fiction

Other Subjects:

Narrative theme: Sense of place
Travel writing
African history
Civics and citizenship
Penology and punishment

Dewey:

823.914

Prizes:

Short-listed for Golden Man Booker Prize 2018 (UK)

Physical Properties

Physical Format:

Hardback

Number of Pages:

304

Dimensions:

Width 101mm, Height 156mm, Spine 20mm

Weight:

198g

Description

V. S. Naipaul's Booker Prize winning novel about displacement, the yearning for the good place in someone else's land and the attendant heartache. Part of the Macmillan Collector's Library, a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket-sized classics with gold-foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition is introduced by acclaimed author, Robert McCrum. In a Free State tells the story first of an Indian servant in Washington, who becomes an American citizen but feels displaced. Then of a disturbed Asian West Indian in London who, in jail for murder, has never really known where he is. Then the central novel moves to a fictional African country. There, the central characters have to make the long drive to the safety of their compound. By the end of this drive we know everything about the English characters, the African country and the Idi Amin-like future awaiting it.

Reviews

A book of such lucid complexity and such genuine insight, so deft and deep, that it somehow manages to agitate, charm, amuse and excuse the reader all at the same pitch of experience -- Dennis Potter * The Times *
Naipauls travel writing is perhaps the most important body of work of its kind in the second half of the century -- Martin Amis

Author Bio

V. S. Naipaul was born in Trinidad in 1932. He came to England on a scholarship in 1950. He spent four years at University College, Oxford, and began to write, in London, in 1954. He pursued no other profession. His novels include A House for Mr Biswas, The Mimic Men, Guerrillas, A Bend in the River, and The Enigma of Arrival. In 1971 he was awarded the Booker Prize for In a Free State. His works of non-fiction, equally acclaimed, include Among the Believers, Beyond Belief, The Masque of Africa, and a trio of books about India: An Area of Darkness, India: A Wounded Civilization and India: A Million Mutinies Now. In 1990, V. S. Naipaul received a knighthood for services to literature; in 1993, he was the first recipient of the David Cohen British Literature Prize. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2001. He lived with his wife Nadira and cat Augustus in Wiltshire, and died in 2018.

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