Synopses & Reviews
In the tradition of political and cultural revelation V.S. Naipaul so brilliantly made his own in Among The Believers, A Turn In The South, his first book about the United States, is a revealing, disturbing, elegiac book about the American South -- from Atlanta to Charleston, Tallahassee to Tuskegee, Nashville to Chapel Hill.
Review
"As befits the stature of its author, this travel account of the present-day South has received enormous attention. Excerpts, interviews, and reviews have appeared in all the right places, with most of the comment being distinctly favorable. And, indeed, this is not a bad book—much worse have been written about the South. But neither is it particularly profound, novel, or penetrating. Naipaul, as he admits, knew virtually nothing about the South when he set out on his journey, and so for much of the book he is busy discovering things most of his readers already know. Sometimes he discovers only crude stereotype and condescension, as in the long definition one arrogant Southerner delivers of 'redneck.' The book's greatest strength is partly a result of this weakness, for Naipaul sees with a clear and surprised eye things to which most of us have long since become numb." Reviewed by Daniel Weiss, Virginia Quarterly Review (Copyright 2006 Virginia Quarterly Review)
Synopsis
The Nobel Prize-winning author delivers a revealing, disturbing, "astute and penetrating book (The New York Times Book Review) about the American South--from Atlanta to Charleston, Tallahassee to Tuskegee, Nashville to Chapel Hill. "A master of English prose." --Nobel Prize Winner J. M. Coetzee, The New York Review of Books
In the tradition of political and cultural revelation V.S. Naipaul so brilliantly made his own in Among The Believers, A Turn In The South is his first book about the United States.
Synopsis
The Nobel Prize-winning author delivers a revealing and disturbing book about the American South--from Atlanta to Charleston, Tallahassee to Tuskegee, Nashville to Chapel Hill. - "His comprehension is astute and penetrating.... The book he has written brings new understanding of] the subject." --The New York Times Book Review In the tradition of political and cultural revelation V.S. Naipaul so brilliantly made his own in Among The Believers, A Turn In The South is his first book about the United States.
"Naipaul's chapters honor the diversity that marks the South.... Conservatives and liberals, whites and blacks, men and women speak for themselves, and reveal the dark side of the story in their own ways ... fascinating and revealing." --The New Republic
"Mr. Naipaul travels with the artist's eye and ear and his observations are sharply discerning." --Evelyn Waugh
"A master of English prose." --Nobel Prize Winner J. M. Coetzee, The New York Review of Books
"His writing is clean and beautiful, and he has a great eye for nuance.... No American writer could achieve his] kind of evenhandedness, and it gives Naipaul's perceptions an almost built-in originality." --Atlantic Monthly
About the Author
V. S. Naipaul was born in Trinidad in 1932. He has published more than 20 books of fiction and nonfiction, including A House for Mr. Biswas, A Bend in the River, The Enigma of Arrival and An Area of Darkness. He lives in Wiltshire, England. He was knighted in 1990 and received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2001.