An Area of Darkness

A luminous and challenging work of autobiographical travel writing.

The first book in V. S. Naipaul’s acclaimed Indian trilogy, republished as part of the Picador Collection.

‘His narrative skill is spectacular. One returns with pleasure to the slow hand-in-hand revelations of both India and himself’ – The Times

An Area of Darkness is V. S. Naipaul’s semi-autobiographical account of his first visit to India, the land of his forebears. At once painful and hilarious, but always thoughtful and considered.

He was twenty-nine years old; he stayed for a year. From the moment of his inauspicious arrival in Prohibition-dry Bombay, bearing whisky and cheap brandy, he experienced a cultural estrangement from the subcontinent. It became for him a land of myths, an area of darkness closing up behind him as he travelled . . .

The experience was not a pleasant one, but the pain the author suffered was creative rather than numbing, and engendered a masterful work of literature that is revelatory both of India and of himself: a displaced person who paradoxically possesses a stronger sense of place than almost anyone.

Now part of the Picador Collection, a series showcasing the very best of modern literature.