SOURCE: "Miseries and Splendours of the Short Story," in Encounter, Vol. XXXIX, No. 3, September, 1972, pp. 69-75.
Theroux is an American fiction writer, critic, and travel writer who, since 1963, has lived outside the United States, first traveling to Africa with the Peace Corps and later settling in England. Many of his novels and short stories have foreign settings—Kenya in Fong and the Indians (1968), Malawi in Girls at Play (1969) and Jungle Lovers (1971), Singapore in Saint Jack (1973)—and feature characters whose conflicting cultural backgrounds, as well as their personal conflicts, provide the substance of the story. Critics often find Theroux's fictional works to be sardonic expositions of chaos and disillusionment presented with wit, imagination, and considerable narrative skill. Theroux has also produced several nonfiction accounts of his travels, including The Great Railway Bizarre (1975) and The Old Patagonian Express (1979). As a critic, he has written a study of Trinidadian novelist and essayist V. S. Naipaul and frequently reviews books for several major English and American periodicals. In the following essay, he offers a favorable assessment of the short stories comprising The Ballroom of Romance.
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