SOURCE: "Neil Bissoondath: Tales of the New World," in Washington Post Book World, Vol. XVI, No. 16, October 19, 1986, p. 6.

Shacochis is an American writer and the 1985 winner of the American Book Award. Below, he examines the thematic relations of the stories in Digging Up the Mountains.

Bloodlines can function like a diplomatic passport for a writer making his or her debut, but they can just as easily be excess baggage, the constant unwanted weight of a destiny preordained for shortcomings. Neil Bissoondath, a Trinidad-born writer who emigrated to Toronto in 1973 at the age of 18, is the second-generation prince of an island-bred literary aristocracy, and thus is in the ostensible position of upholding a family's reputation. As nephew of V. S. Naipaul and the late Shiva Naipaul, Bissoondath is de facto an object of our curiosity. We want to know if he has inherited the gift, and the courage to...