SOURCE: "V. S. Naipaul and Politics: His View of Third World Societies in Africa and the Caribbean," in CLA Journal, Vol. XXVIII, No. 3, March, 1985, pp. 247-62.

In the following essay, Timothy examines V. S. Naipaul's view, as expressed in his fiction, of Third World political attitudes and issues.

There is a certain sense in which V. S. Naipaul is an anachronism in Third World writing: He is the writerin-exile trained in the metropole and still resident there after thirty years. He is the writer who left the West Indies at a time when the colonial system was well entrenched and who has never returned to his homeland except in fleeting visits. He has never participated in any political movement dedicated to the notion of political independence; rather he has eschewed nationalistic pronouncements. Now a citizen of Britain, he has revealed how sincerely he depends on what he calls...