India: Essays

Between 1962 and 2006, V. S. Naipaul wrote six essays about India, some of his finest pieces of reflection and reportage. Approaching India through the residue of Indian culture and the scattered memories of nineteenth-century emigrants, eventually leading to a special understanding of Mahatma Gandhi, Naipaul offers an exceptional and sustained meditation on the country that was never his.These are essays, full of gentleness, humour and feeling, that take us into the mind of a great writer. 'Peerless ... the human encounters are described minutely, superbly ... there is a candour to his writing, a constant precision at its heart' - Sunday Times'Sceptical, enquiring, sharply observant and unfailingly stylish' - Guardian'The coolest literary eye and most lucid prose we have' - New York Times Book Review