Collected Short Fiction Read Free

Naipaul, Postcolonial Mandarin
, Oxford University Press, 1992, by Rob Nixon. An earlier account is William Walsh’s V.
S. Naipaul
, Oliver and Boyd, 1973. John Thieme’s
The Web of Tradition
, Hansib Publishing, 1987, deals with ‘the uses of allusion’ in the fiction. A short study by Peter Hughes,
V. S. Naipaul
, Routledge, appeared in 1988. Naipaul’s books have attracted a large amount of periodical criticism: a selection of such material is presented in
Critical Perspectives on V. S. Naipaul
, Heinemann Educational, ed. Robert Hamner, 1979.

CHRONOLOGY

    1932
    AUTHOR’S LIFE: Birth of Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul in Trinidad (August 17).
    LITERARY CONTEXT: Huxley:
Brave New World
.
Faulkner:
Light in August
.
    HISTORICAL EVENTS: Election of Roosevelt in US. Nazis become largest party in German Reichstag.
    1933
    HISTORICAL EVENTS: Roosevelt announces ‘New Deal’; Hitler becomes German Chancellor.
    1934
    LITERARY CONTEXT: Fitzgerald:
Tender is the
Night
.
Miller:
Tropic of Cancer
.
Waugh:
A Handful of Dust
.
    1935
    LITERARY CONTEXT: Lewis:
It Can’t Happen
Here
.
Steinbeck:
Tortilla Flat
.
    HISTORICAL EVENTS: Nuremberg Laws depriving Jews of citizenship and rights.
    1936
    LITERARY CONTEXT: Faulkner:
Absalom
,
Absalom!

Eliot:
Collected Poems
.
    HISTORICAL EVENTS: Outbreak of Spanish Civil War (to 1939). Hitler and Mussolini form Rome–Berlin Axis. Stalin’s ‘Great Purge’ (to 1938).
    1937
    LITERARY CONTEXT: Dos Passos:
USA
.
Steinbeck:
Of Mice and Men
.
Hemingway:
To Have and

Have not
.
    HISTORICAL EVENTS: Japanese invasion of China.
    1938
    LITERARY CONTEXT: Greene:
Brighton Rock
.
Waugh:
Scoop
.
    HISTORICAL EVENTS: Germany annexes Austria; Munich crisis.
    1939
    LITERARY CONTEXT: Steinbeck:
The Grapes of
Wrath
.
Joyce:
Finnegans Wake
.
Miller:
Tropic of Capricorn
.
    HISTORICAL EVENTS: World War II.
    1940
    LITERARY CONTEXT: Hemingway:
For Whom
the Bell Tolls
.
Greene:
The Power and the
Glory
.
    HISTORICAL EVENTS: Fall of France; Battle of Britain.
    1941
    LITERARY CONTEXT: Fitzgerald:
The Last
Tycoon
.
    HISTORICAL EVENTS: Japanese attack Pearl Harbor; USA enters war. Hitler invades USSR.
    1942
    LITERARY CONTEXT: Eliot:
Four Quartets
.
Camus:
The Stranger
.
    HISTORICAL EVENTS: Rommel defeated at El Alamein.
    1943–8
    AUTHOR’S LIFE: Attends Queen’s Royal College, Port of Spain.
    1943
    HISTORICAL EVENTS: Allied invasion of Italy.
    1944
    HISTORICAL EVENTS: Allied landings in Normandy.
    1945
    LITERARY CONTEXT: Orwell:
Animal Farm
.
Waugh:
Brideshead Revisited
.
Borges:
Fictions
.
    HISTORICAL EVENTS: Defeat of Germany. Atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. End of World War II. Foundation of the United Nations.
    1947
    HISTORICAL EVENTS: Indian independence. Cold War develops.
    1948
    LITERARY CONTEXT: Greene:
The Heart of the
Matter
.
Paton:
Cry, the Beloved Country
.
    HISTORICAL EVENTS: Jewish state of Israel comes into existence. Apartheid introduced in South Africa. Gandhi assassinated in India.
    1949
    LITERARY CONTEXT: Orwell:
Nineteen Eighty-Four
.
    HISTORICAL EVENTS: Chinese Revolution. Foundation of NATO.
    1950–54
    AUTHOR’S LIFE: University College, Oxford; settles in England.
    1950
    HISTORICAL EVENTS: Korean War (to 1953)
    1951
    LITERARY CONTEXT: Frost:
Complete Poems
.
Salinger:
The Catcher in the Rye
.
    1952
    LITERARY CONTEXT: Beckett:
Waiting for
Godot
.
Steinbeck:
East of Eden
.
    HISTORICAL EVENTS: Eisenhower elected US President. Accession of Elizabeth II.
    1953
    LITERARY CONTEXT: Bellow:
The Adventures
of Augie March
.
    HISTORICAL EVENTS: Death of Stalin. European Court of Human Rights set up in Strasbourg.
    1954–6
    AUTHOR’S LIFE: Editor, ‘Caribbean Voices’ for the BBC, England.
    1954
    LITERARY CONTEXT: Amis:
Lucky Jim
.
Golding:
Lord of the Flies
.
    HISTORICAL EVENTS: Vietnam War begins.
    1955
    AUTHOR’S LIFE: Marries Patricia Anna Hale.
    LITERARY CONTEXT: Nabokov:
Lolita
.
Williams:
Cat on a Hot Tin
Roof
.
    1956
    LITERARY CONTEXT: Osborne:
Look Back in
Anger
.
    HISTORICAL