V.S. Naipaul: Storytelling of the Post Colonial World *Online* *NEW*

V.S. Naipaul, a descendant of indentured laborers who came to Trinidad from India in the late 19th century, won the Nobel Prize for literature in 2001. Naipaul was known for both fiction and travel writing. We will read two of his masterpieces. The novel A Bend in the River tells the story of an Indian trader caught in the turmoil of post-colonial Africa. An Area of Darkness describes his troubled reactions to India on his first visit to his familial homeland. The two works show why the Nobel Committee cited Naipaul’s “perceptive narrative and incorruptible scrutiny in works that compel us to see the presence of suppressed histories.” Instructors: Margie & Jim Sabin

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Instructor

Margery Sabin has a PhD in Comparative Literature from Harvard and has had a long career as Professor of English at Wellesley College, where she has taught a large variety of courses, including Introduction to reading lyric poetry to advanced courses in the Victorian novel and the 20th c. Novel, plus interdisciplinary courses in postcolonial literature, specifically involving writings from modern South Asia (India and Pakistan) and modern Ireland. She also has enjoyed teaching for many summers in the MA program at the Bread Loaf School of English, where she has come to appreciate the adult students (mainly high school teachers). She is the author of 3 books and many articles on the above subjects.