SOURCE: King, Bruce. Review of Sir Vidia's Shadow, by Paul Theroux. World Literature Today 73, no. 2 (spring 1999): 343.

In the following review, King focuses on Theroux's descriptions of V. S. Naipaul as a man and as a writer in Sir Vidia's Shadow.

Sir Vidia's Shadow is subtitled A Friendship Across Five Continents and concerns Paul Theroux's relationship with V. S. Naipaul since 1966, when Theroux, a university lecturer in Uganda, met Naipaul, who had been sent by an American foundation as a visiting professor, writer, or intellectual—which is not clear, as Naipaul refused to teach and used the time for his own writing, finishing The Mimic Men (1967). This appears to have been the most rewarding time of the friendship between the two. Eleven years younger, Theroux, who was in love with Africa and an African woman, was Naipaul's opposite, guide, and pupil. Theroux was part of the Transition circle, but...