In a Free State

Winner of the Booker Prize 1971 and nominated for the Golden Man Booker Prize in 2018.In a Free State tells the story first of an Indian servant in Washington, who becomes an American citizen but feels he has ceased to be a part of the flow.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 Africa, to a fictional country somewhere like Uganda or Rwanda.The novel's central characters once found Africa liberating, but now it has gone sour on them.The land is no longer safe, and at a time of tribal conflict they have to make the long drive to the safety of their compound.At the end of this drive - the narrative tight, wonderfully constructed, the formal and precise language always instilled with violence and rage - we know everything about the English characters, the African country and the Idi Amin-like future awaiting it.This is one of V. S. Naipaul’s greatest novels, hard but full of pity. This is