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The
2003 Award
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Half a Life by
V. S. Naipaul Nominated by:
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Publisher of Nominated Editions: A.A. Knopf ISBN 0375407375 : Picador ISBN 0330485164, 0330485180 |
| the complete A-Z listing of nominated authors. |
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ABOUT
THE BOOK
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| In
a corner of India untouched by anti-colonial agitation Willy Chandran's
father stood at odds with the world - aspiring to greatness whilst living
out the dreary life marked out for him by his ancestors. In an attempt to
defy his past, he lives with a low-caste woman only to find himself at the
mercy of his own fury. From this unhappy union the utterly compelling character of Willy Chandran emerges, oddly like his father, naively eager to find something that will place him both in and apart form the world. And so he is drawn to England, to the immigrant community of post-war London, its dingy West End clubs, lonely pavements and sexual encounters, and even to the eccentric milieu of the English writer. But it is Willy's first experience of love that might bring him the fulfilment he so desperately seeks. His wife, Ana, leads him to her home, a province in Portuguese Africa, a country populated by desperate businessmen and their frustrated wives all uncertainly living out the last days of colonialism. Half a Life is a depiction of love fulfilled and thwarted, a vision of the half-lives quietly lived out at the centre of our restless world. |
| ABOUT THE AUTHOR |
| V. S. Naipaul was born in Trinidad in 1932. He is the author of more than fourteen works of fiction, including The Mystic Masseur, A House for Mr. Biswas, A Way in the World (shortlisted for the 1996 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award), and A Bend in the River. He is also the author of ten works of non-fiction, including the acclaimed Indian trilogy comprising An Area of Darkness, India: A Wounded Civilisation and India: A Million Mutinies. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2001. He lives in England. |
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Reader
Review
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This novel starts life in India where the hero is the off-spring of a very curious coming together of a man and woman from widely separate castes in a strange marriage. The hero, or anti-hero, comes to London. There he finds an immigrant sub-culture which submerges him. Consequentially, he leaves this haven and seeks another and finds himself in ex-colonial Africa married to a mixed race woman. A very strange, at times funny read. However, perhaps one needs to have lived and experienced the racially-mixed areas of London to really appreciate its somewhat curious sense of the ridiculous. While this is a well written book, and I had chosen it for holiday reading, I did not find it a book that I would want to re-read! It has had excellent reviews from the professional critics. Perhaps it might be necesssary to have read some of this author's earlier works to become accustomed to his sense of humour and his style of writing. Raheny Library Readers' Group Member
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Find out more about the author on the following websites: Read
an excerpt from Half a Life |
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