SOURCE: "Signs of Life," in New York Review of Books, February 14, 1991, pp. 3-5.

In the following review, Buruma praises Naipaul for his depiction of India and its people as they struggle to achieve what Naipaul calls "universal civilization."

Near the end of V.S. Naipaul's first book about India, An Area of Darkness, there is an unforgettable piece of writing. It is a description of his visit to the village of the Dubes. It was from there that Naipaul's grandfather left for Trinidad around the turn of the century as an indentured laborer. Naipaul, "content to be a colonial, without a past, without ancestors," visits his ancestral village with a feeling of dread.

In fact, the village is not as bad as he had expected. An old woman who had known Naipaul's grandfather is produced. She tells him a family story. Naipaul gives her some money. Then the...