New York, NY: Knopf (2000)

First Edition. Signed on the title page.

Near fine in dust jacket.

At seventeen, V.S. Naipaul wanted to “follow no other profession” but writing. Awarded a scholarship by the Trinidadian government, he set out to attend Oxford, where he was encountered a vastly different world from the one he yearned to leave behind.

Separated from his family by continents, and grappling with depression, financial strain, loneliness, and dislocation, “Vido” bridged the distance with a faithful correspondence that began shortly before the young man’s two-week journey to England and ended soon after his father’s death four years later.

Here, for the first time, we have the opportunity to read this profoundly moving correspondence, which illuminates with unalloyed candor the relationship between a sacrificing father and his determined son as the encourage each other to persevere with their writing. For though his father’s literary aspirations would go unrealized, Naipaul’s triumphant career would ultimately vindicate his beloved mentor’s legacy.

V. S. NAIPAUL was born in Trinidad in 1932. He came to England in 1950, spent four years at Oxford, and began to write in 1954 in London. His novels include A House for Mr Biswas, The Enigma of Arrival, and In a Free State, which won the Booker Prize. His works of nonfiction include Among the Believers, Beyond Belief, and The Masque of Africa. In 1990, Naipaul received a knighthood and in 2001 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. He died in 2018.