This book traces the ways in which problems of imaginative authority and authorship structure the fiction and non-fiction of V.S. Naipaul and resonate in postcolonial literature. Imraan Coovadia argues that the post-colonial societies Naipaul studies in novels such asA Bend in the RiverandGuerillasare defined by the fragility of their authority. Coovadia demonstrates through close reading, how Naipaul, born in Trinidad to an Indian family and resident of the United Kingdom,asserts hisimaginative authority over many different situations across the globe through a complex literary rhetoric.

Autorentext
IMRAAN COOVADIA is Senior Lecturer in the Department of English at the University of Cape Town, South Africa.

Inhalt
Introduction: Authorship and Authority Authority and Misquotation The Cold Joke Naipaul and the Black Power Killings in Trinidad Naipaul and the Muslims Naipaul and the Uses of South Africa