"The most splendid writer of English alive today. . . . He looks into the mad eye of history and does not blink." - The Boston Globe "It is altogether tonic to have a writer such as V. S. Naipaul in our midst. . . . This volume is as good a place as any to discover why he is a figure of such consequence." - Daphne Merkin, "The New York Times Book Review "Naipaul brings to the [nonfiction] genre an extraordinary capacity for making art out of lucid thought. . . . [His is] a way of thinking about the world that will compel our attention throughout his working life and well beyond. . . . I can no longer imagine the world without Naipaul's writing." - Vivian Gornick, "Los Angeles Times Book Review "Perceptive . . . inspired, provocative. . . . Naipaul has succeeded in richly articulating a writer's engagement with and exploration of the world." - "The San Diego Union-Tribune "A profound, bracing meditation on the legacy of the colonial world. . . . His writing [offers] the world through eyes possessed of a noble clarity." - "Pittsburgh Post-Gazette "A welcome and worthy volume. . . . Only Naipaul can take a dim view of so much and so many, yet keep that dimness fantastically illuminated. . . . His prose is often simultaneously a blunt instrument and a surgical one, equally freighted with broad dismissive statements and blood-lettingly dissective insight." -"San Francisco Chronicle "The quality and credibility of Naipaul's words become apparent when you find yourself savoring [his] descriptions. . . . Once finished with the collection, the reader will never see the world through the same eyes again." - "Fort Worth Star-Telegram" "Witheringly astute. . . . One of our finest living writers. . . . Naipaul's is a crystalline, no-nonsense style. . . . He gives you the real world." - "The Weekly Standard "Naipaul is essential reading today for anyone interested in a dissection of the universal tension that exists now between the East and the West. . . . His scholarship is exhaustive, his intuition trustworthy, and his scrutiny is unwavering." - "The Oregonian "Wonderfully insightful. . . . Few writers are as qualified for the present moment, and few writers are as needed." - "The Orlando Sentinel "Naipaul forces the traveler to think. . . . [He is] ever curious, ever exact in his observations." -"Austin American-Statesman "Splendid. . . . Elegant and understated. . . . Naipaul is insatiable in his pursuit of facts and brilliant in his analysis of them." - "The Sunday Star-Ledger "Naipaul's essays . . . depict a chaotic world, torn by ethnic, religious and cultural antagonisms, but they also discover the humanity that unites us, and thereby provide the kind of reassurance that perhaps only literature affords." - "San Jose Mercury News"

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 has followed no other profession. He has published more than 20 books of fiction and nonfiction, including Half a Life, A House for Mr. Biswas, A Bend in the River and most recently The Masque of Africa, and a collection of correspondence, Letters Between Father and Son. In 2001 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.