SOURCE: Greenberg, Robert M. “Anger and the Alchemy of Literary Method in V. S. Naipaul's Political Fiction: The Case of The Mimic Men.” Twentieth Century Literature 46, no. 2 (summer 2000): 214-37.

In the following essay, Greenberg considers the impact of Naipaul's racial attitudes and pessimism on his novel The Mimic Men.

V. S. Naipaul's fiction and nonfiction since the 1960s have reflected an unenthusiastic view of postcolonial nationalism and nation building. He has had difficulty believing in the ability of new nations in Africa and the Caribbean to raise themselves to a condition of economic autonomy and cultural authenticity. He has also been against a political rhetoric and agenda that calls for breaking cultural ties with European nations.¹ Instead, political skepticism, Western cultural conservatism, and realist and modernist aesthetics have determined the selection and treatment of subjects in Naipaul's writing. These approaches have caused postcolonial intellectuals to complain about his...