Guerrillas

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Set on a troubled Caribbean island – where Asians, Africans, Americans and former British colonials co-exist in a state of suppressed hysteria – V. S. Naipaul’s Guerrillas is a novel of colonialism and revolution. A white man arrives with his mistress, an Englishwoman influenced by fantasies of native power and sexuality, unaware of the consequences of her actions. Together with a leader of the ‘revolution’, they act out a gripping drama of death, sexual violence and spiritual impotence. Guerrillas depicts a convulsion in public life, and ends in private violence. The novel comes with extraordinary force from the centre of a profound moral awareness of the worldâ plight. ‘Impeccable . . . Guerrillas seems to me Naipaulâ Heart of Darkness: a brilliant artistâ anatomy of emptiness, and of despair’ – Observer

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