Fraser, Peter D. (2010). "Review of V.S. Naipaul: Man and Writer by Gillian Dooley". Caribbean Studies. Institute of Caribbean Studies, UPR, Rio Piedras Campus. 38 (1): 212–215. doi: 10.1353/crb.2010.0027. JSTOR 27944592. S2CID 144996410. In 1974, Naipaul wrote the novel Guerrillas, following a creative slump that lasted several years. [114] His editor at André Deutsch, Diana Athill, made minor suggestions for improving the book, which led Naipaul to leave the publishing house. He returned a few weeks later. [115] A Bend in the River, published in 1979, marks the beginning of his exploration of native historical traditions, deviating from his usual " New World" examinations. [116] Naipaul also covered the 1984 Republican National Convention in Dallas, Texas, at the behest of Robert B. Silvers, editor of The New York Review of Books, after which Naipaul wrote "Among the Republicans", [117] an anthropological study of a "white tribe in the United States". [118]

I do not recall how I came to own An Area of Darkness by V.S. Naipaul. It's not a genre I normally read, but I did own it, and having it I decided to give it a try. It was worth it. Didion, Joan (12 June 1980). "Without Regret or Hope". The New York Review of Books. Archived from the original on 8 September 2005. I could insert here my own observations as to how ideologues exist in every country. Worldwide people who cling to beliefs and social systems even when they have been proven not to work but that is a discussion for another time, I suppose. Smyer, Richard (1992). Kelly, Richard; Hassan, Dolly Zulakha (eds.). "A New Look at V. S. Naipaul". Contemporary Literature. 33 (3): 573–581. doi: 10.2307/1208485. ISSN 0010-7484. JSTOR 1208485.As his journey progressed, for it was a journey on several levels, he became, if not more emotionally involved, at least interested. And even now, though time has widened, though space has contracted and I have travelled lucidly over that area which was to me the area of darkness, something of that darkness remains, in those attitudes, those ways of thinking and seeing, which are no longer mine [...] If you didn't know Naipaul was Indian (or even Trinidadian) you might mistake him for upper class British. He went to Oxford and lived in London and he peers down upon the natives he encounters in the former colonies. It's not always certain that the comical results are intentional. Knowing Naipaul from his other work, he is likely quite serious in his outlook. On way to Bombay he delivers scathing comments on Egypt, Arabia and Pakistan, setting an acerbic tone for things to come. Geoffrey Wheatcroft, "Sardonic Genius - Geoffrey Wheatcroft recalls his friendship with the writer Shiva Naipaul, who died 20 years ago", The Spectator, 13 August 2005.

This is a must read book for anyone who wants to understand India as a whole, but be prepared for some harsh words. Naipaul calls Ghandi one of the greatest failures of India. He brought in ideas of an egalitarian society and human rights that were never put into practice. The Indians did what they always did. They made Ghandi into a Holy Man to be revered and enshrined while ignoring his teaching. Form is worshiped even though it is devoid of substance. V. S Naipaul has always been a controversial figure. Whether it is for his rude behaviour towards fellow writers at conferences or his show of support for India's Hindutva ring, Bharatiya Janata Party or his admission in his autobiography that his callousness killed his wife, this Trinidadian author has always been some sort of an enfant terrible of English literature. For all his genius, he also remains a vilified figure in India and not without reason. The Area of Darkness, when it was published in 1964, created an uproar among Indians and was intensely criticised for its unkind, deriding and supercilious view of India. And interesting. I have never traveled to India, although I did live in the Caribbean not far from Trinidad. My landlady and her family in Grenada were Indian and also from Trinidad. If I had not lived there I would not have known what a significant percentage of the population on the East Indian islands are descendants from India. Tripathi, Salil (9 February 2004). "Commentary - Remembering the Indian poet Nissim Ezekial". New Statesman.Brahmin cows stagger around starving to death because they are holy. People starve to death or live off garbage because that is their Karma. How much disgust seeps through the lines describing the numbness of the poor, the condition of the infrastructure, completely disregarding that he's in a country that has basically been bled out for its resources for the last few centuries. Naipaul was born and raised in Trinidad, to which his grandfathers had emigrated from India as indentured servants. He is known for the wistfully comic early novels of Trinidad, the bleaker novels of a wider world remade by the passage of peoples, and the vigilant chronicles of his life and travels, all written in characteristic, widely admired, prose. in futility and impatience, a gratuitous act of cruelty, self-reproach and flight[...]It was a journey that ought not to have been madeOnly in Arthur Koestler´s The Lotus and the Robot does one find such a violent reaction against India, and Koestler is reacting against what he perceived to be sham spirituality, against nonsense and filth dressed up as religious sentiment; in Naipaul, his narrator twin seems to be in complete, preemptive denial of anything that could tie him to India.