SOURCE: Mishra, Pankaj. “The House of Mr. Naipaul.” New York Review of Books (20 January 2000): 14-17.

In the following review, Mishra explores the major thematic concerns of the family letters collected in Between Father and Son and provides a biographical account of Naipaul's early life, particularly his relationship with his father.

In an essay called “Prologue to an Autobiography,” V. S. Naipaul tells a story about Indian immigrants in Trinidad. These immigrants had wanted to escape the general dereliction of late-nineteenth-century North India, and they had gone out to another British colony, Trinidad, to work there as indentured laborers. Many of them would have been attracted by the promise of a small grant of land after the end of their contract, or a free return trip to India with their families. But the promise had been fitfully redeemed by the colonial administration; and there were destitute and homeless. Indians...