Throwing Light On Darkness

"A great writer can profoundly influence the way you see a country or a culture, and for a long time - too long, possibly – my view of India was coloured by VS Naipaul. I am far from alone in this. When it was published in 1964, Naipaul’s An Area of Darkness gave the rest of the world its first compelling account of post-imperial India. In literature, western or eastern, nothing else came close."

Ian Jack reassesses V.S. Naipaul's An Area of Darkness and its impact.