In a Free State
by V. S. Naipaul | Literature & Fiction | This book has not been rated.
ISBN: 014003711x Global Overview for this book
ISBN: 014003711x Global Overview for this book
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From the back cover:
This is a sequence, part fiction, part documentary, and at its heart is a novel of great brilliance.
The novel is set in a free state of Africa at a time of civil conflict when a once-ruling tribe is being decimated. But for English people like Bobby and Linda, driving back from the capital to their expatriates' compound, the roads are open. Neutral, white, protected, they have both in their different ways found liberation in Africa, and they too might be said to be 'in a free state'. But their neutrality will not last; there is a danger on the open road.
Explorer and exploited: it is one of the conditions of life in a free state that the roles should ceaselessly shift. This is not the Africa of romance of 'service', but something infinitely more ambiguous.
This is a sequence, part fiction, part documentary, and at its heart is a novel of great brilliance.
The novel is set in a free state of Africa at a time of civil conflict when a once-ruling tribe is being decimated. But for English people like Bobby and Linda, driving back from the capital to their expatriates' compound, the roads are open. Neutral, white, protected, they have both in their different ways found liberation in Africa, and they too might be said to be 'in a free state'. But their neutrality will not last; there is a danger on the open road.
Explorer and exploited: it is one of the conditions of life in a free state that the roles should ceaselessly shift. This is not the Africa of romance of 'service', but something infinitely more ambiguous.
