For Nobel laureate V.S. Naipaul, mutinies are not only violent movements against the authorities but also social movements taken up by individuals.
“Think of it in smaller ways,” he told a session on ‘The Writer and the World’ on the penultimate day of the ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival on Saturday.
This was the background of his A Million Mutinies Now, a work of non-fiction published in 1990. “All these were mutinies as I saw,” he said.
His An Area of Darkness is also set in an Indian background. “It is not about advances of India but hypocrisies and darkness of a place. It was a factual suggestion of a place.”
After he was criticised for his depiction of India in the book, Mr. Naipaul’s mother said “India should be left to Indians.”
When he began writing, he had nothing particular in mind. He had to think of a subject. His father being a journalist, he was exposed to writing. When he penned down his thoughts, someone who read it asked him to stop writing.
A new writer’s ordealFinally, one day he started typing out while working as a freelancer in his BBC office and decided not to get up until he completed his work. It was a compilation of short stories that the publisher refused to bring out, arguing that short stories were not popular, Mr. Naipual said. But all new writers had to face this ordeal.
Asked about his visit to India, Mr. Naipaul said it was the land of his ancestors, and he wanted to get a feel of it.
