In the following essay, Thieme compares In a Free State to Naipaul's earlier work and concludes that this later effort shows the author moving beyond themes of the wretchedness of Third World colonial life to reflect his personal ability to free himself from the shackles of a colonial mentality.

In the following essay, Boxill asserts that Naipaul understands freedom as having to be paradoxical in order to be meaningful, and discusses the symbolic “prisons” in In a Free State.

In the following essay, Boxill discusses the paradoxical nature of freedom and the symbolic "prisons" in Naipaul's In a Free State.

In the following review of In a Free State, Kazin calls the book one of Naipaul's best and illustrates how the short stories within the work give voice to Naipaul's major themes of displacement, exile, and homelessness.

In the following review of In a Free State, Theroux calls the work a “masterpiece in the fiction of rootlessness” and compares the transplanted characters of the short stories to those in Naipaul's other works.

In the following review, Calder praises the two short stories of In a Free State for their ability to convey the fears and isolation of emigrants living in cultures destroyed by imperialism, but criticizes the book as a whole for being too pessimistic to recognize any positive signs for hope in the African continent.

In the following review of In a Free State, Larson criticizes the short stories and novella for their pessimistic themes of emigrants suffering from prejudice as they lead lives in foreign lands.