A Million Mutinies Within No hagiography:
'He believed that a less than candid biography would be pointless, and his willingness to allow such a book to be published in his lifetime was at once an act of narcissism and humility.'
PATRICK FRENCH
Patrick French's authorised biography of V.S. Naipaul, The World Is What It Is (Picador India, 576 pp, Rs 595), is no hagiography. On the contrary, it is a searingly honest and insightful portrait of a flawed and tormented genius. Reproduced below are three extracts-the first from French's illuminating Introduction to the book; the second charting how Naipaul's views on India evolved and changed over 30 years; and the third from an extraordinary later chapter, in which Naipaul loses one wife and gains another, even as he discards his mistress..................
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