VS Naipaul and the Quest for Modernity, with Pankaj Mishra

Tue 12 March 2024

Selwyn College

Over five decades VS Naipaul wrote about the political and intellectual awakening of the peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America—its promises and perils, its achievements and ambiguities. In novels as formally different as A House for Mr Biswas and A Bend in the River, and in his travel books, he described the difficult transition to modernity in remote corners of the non-Western world.

Unlike many other writers and journalists, Naipaul saw modernity as the sum of something more than economic development, industrial growth and urbanisation. It indicated to him a deeper transformation of the mind, an acceptance of rational modes of thought, and the cultivation of an individual sensibility.

This review of his writings from today's perspective should examine not only his personal background but also the broader intellectual influences on his attitude and his conflicting feelings. It will, above all, explain where the transitional world he described is today.

Pankaj Mishra is an award-winning Indian writer, known for his literary and political essays. He has written introductions to two volumes of VS Naipaul’s essays, The Writer and the World and Literary Occasions, and has spoken extensively on the fabric of society — most recently in his book Run and Hide (Penguin, 2022).

Cost: 0