Ethnicity, Self-Knowledge and Literary Sensitivity: A Sociological Reading of V. S. Naipaul’s First Four Novels

• Published in: Sociological bulletin Vol. 71; no. 1; pp. 133 - 149
• Main Author: Jayaram, N.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New Delhi, India SAGE Publications 01.01.2022; Indian Sociological Society
• Subjects: Colonialism; Culture; Diaspora; Ethnicity; Knowledge; Migrants; Naipaul, V S (Vidiadhar Surajprasad) (1932-2018); Sociology; Voting rights; literary sensitivity; Colonial Trinidad; ethnicity; V. S. Naipaul; G. S. Ghurye
• ISSN: 0038-0229; 2457-0257
• DOI: 10.1177/00380229211063378

Taking a cue from G. S. Ghurye’s Shakespeare on Conscience and Justice (1965) this lecture in his memory explores the role of ethnicity in shaping the self-knowledge and literary sensitivity of V. S. Naipaul. Naipaul’s life traverses three distinct cultures: the Hindu culture brought by his ancestors who came as indentured migrants to Trinidad, the Creole culture of colonial Trinidad and the emerging modern culture of western civilisation. Much of Naipaul’s self-knowledge involved his engagement with these three cultures and his experience of the interplay between colonialism and ethnicity. In his first four novels—Miguel Street, The Mystic Masseur, The Suffrage of Elvira and A House for Mr Biswas—Naipaul describes the life and times of the descendants of Indian immigrants in colonial Trinidad and the making of a girmitiya diaspora there. The lecture delineates the rare sociological insights into this diaspora provided by these novels.