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From AudioFile
Simon Vance has just the right plummy accent for an Indian merchant in post-colonial Africa. He has purchased a shop at a bend in the great river. He sells pencils, copy books, razor blades, and iron pots for people who live in the jungle. A friend has got the Big Burger franchise. "But the airplane is a wonderful thing," his brother tells him. "You are still in one place when you arrive at the other. The airplane is faster than the heart." The jungle reasserts itself. Civilization withdraws. They are going to kill everybody who can read and write. Vance delivers the detached ferocity that won Naipaul the Nobel Prize. B.H.C. © AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

Review
"For sheer abundance of talent, there ca hardly be a writer alive who surpasses V.S. Naipaul." —The New York Times Book Review

"Confirms Naipaul's position as one of the best writers now at work." —Walter Clemons, Newsweek

"The sweep of Naipaul's imagination, the brilliant fictional frame that expresses it, are in my view without equal today." —Elizabeth Hardwick

See all Editorial Reviews

First Sentence:
The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
probat populos, external staircase, dock gates Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Father Huismans, Hellenic Club, Youth Guard, Gloucester Road, The New Domain, Liberation Army, United States, Indian Ocean, Joan Baez, Citizen Théotime, New York, Theodor Mommsen, Citizen Metty, Colonel Yenyi, Defence Force, Margit Brandt New!
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