The Return of Eva Perón with the Killings in Trinidad, by V.S. Naipaul (used)

In this sharp and reflective book V. S. Naipaul explores the feel of the fragile societies.

Beginning on a human–rather than a national–scale with a study of the racial clichés and fantasies which formed Michael X, and a detailed investigation of the events and psychology behind the killings at the Trinidad commune, Naipaul goes on to examine the uneasy society of Argentina during the years of Peronism and urban violence. He continues with an examination of the paradoxes inherent in the cult of Africanization in Mobutu's Zaire.

The last piece, an account of the author's own discovery of Conrad, forms a retrospective look at the preceding themes.

‘The sharpness of V. S. Naipaul's words is that of a razor, dangerous and everyday... He takes his antiseptic intelligence, his steeled heart and his measured anger to the half-made societies... and what he has amazingly done is bend the level tones, the wisely withering wit, of Jane Austen upon societies utterly different from hers’ – Sunday Times

‘Naipaul at his excoriating, scornful best' – New Society

Condition: worn but fair