Naipaul’s A-political Passage – V.S. Naipaul’s The Middle Passage: The Caribbean Revisited (1962) and the difficulty of accepting both socio-political as well as aesthetic implications of the book.
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| Year of publication | 2013 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | The Middle Passage by V.S. Naipaul results from his journey to the West Indies in 1960. It is Naipaul's first non-fiction book and suggestion for its writing came from the Premier of Trinidad and Tobago, Dr Eric Williams. Already the original idea which preceded the book carries possible political connotations. Together with the time of its creation, places described in it and topics discussed, The Middle Passage links itself to socio-political questions occupying current postcolonial discussions. Yet Naipaul insists, already in the foreword, that it is not "an official book". He anxiously distances himself from nationalism (which is impossible in Trinidad and harmful in other communities) and politics ("To have a political view is to be prejudiced. I don't have a political view," The Guardian 2001), but with the thirst for oppositional strategies he does not share, Naipaul is often seen as a politically incorrect supporter of neo-colonialism. Aesthetic qualities of his works are overshadowed by heated debates over his controversial political statements. It seems inevitable for The Middle Passage to be judged primarily according to its political correctness, rather than its other qualities, as long as "'West Indian' is a political word" (Naipaul in Newsweek 1981). |