Human Conditions: ‘A House for Mr Biswas’ by V.S. Naipaul

In A House for Mr Biswas, his 1961 comic masterpiece, V.S. Naipaul pays tribute to his father and the vanishing world of his Trinidadian youth. Pankaj Mishra joins Adam Shatz in their first of four episodes to discuss the novel, a pathbreaking work of postcolonial literature and a particularly powerful influence on Pankaj himself. They explore Naipaul’s fraught relationship to modernity, and the tensions between his attachment to individual freedom and his insistence on the constraints imposed by history.  Non-subscriber will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, sign up: Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings Read more in the LRB: D.A.N. Jones: The Enchantment of Vidia Naipaul https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v06/n08/d.a.n.-jones/the-enchantment-of-vidia-naipaul Frank Kermode: What Naipaul Knows https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v23/n17/frank-kermode/what-naipaul-knows Paul Theroux: Out of Sir Vidia’s Shadow https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v44/n04/paul-theroux/diary Sanjay Subramahnyam: Where does he come from?  https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v29/n21/sanjay-subrahmanyam/where-does-he-come-from Pankaj Mishra is a writer, critic and reporter who regularly contributes to the LRB. His books include Age of Anger: A History of the Present, From the Ruins of Empire: The Intellectuals Who Remade Asia and two novels, most recently Run and Hide. Get in touch: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices