Since V. S. Naipaul left his Caribbean birthplace at the age of seventeen, his improbable life has followed the global movement of peoples, whose preeminent literary chronicler he has become. In The World Is What It Is, Patrick French offers the first authoritative biography of the controversial Nobel laureate, whose only stated ambition was greatness as a writer, in pursuit of which goal nothing else was sacred. Beginning with a richly detailed portrait of Naipaul’s childhood in colonial Trinidad, French gives us the boy born to an Indian family, the displaced soul in a displaced community, who by dint of talent and ambition finds the only imaginable way out: a scholarship to Oxford. London in the 1950s offers hope and his first literary success, but homesickness and depression almost defeat Vidia, his narrow escape aided by Patricia Hale, an Englishwoman who will devote herself to his work and well-being. She will stand by him, sometimes tenuously, for more than four decades, even as Naipaul embarks on a twenty-four-year affair, which will awaken half-dead passions and feed perhaps his greatest wave of dizzying creativity. Amid this harrowing emotional life, French traces the course of the fierce visionary impulse underlying Naipaul’s singular power, a gift to produce masterpieces of fiction and nonfiction. Informed by exclusive access to V. S. Naipaul’s private papers and personal recollections, and by great feeling for his formidable body of work, French’s revelatory biography does full justice to an enigmatic genius.

《自由国度》是诺贝尔文学奖得主V.S.奈保尔代表作，也是奈保尔真正征服欧洲的经典。《自由国度》里的角色拥有不同的肤色血缘和文化背景，但都有相同的漂泊而孤独的灵魂，他们对异乡的憧憬、对自由的渴望，却在偏见中、放逐中，完全化作迷惘与绝望。 《自由国度》将奈保尔式的“零度感情”发挥到极致：冷静的文笔，不紧不慢的叙述，不显山不露水的布局谋篇，全然不带一丝情感，但却令人在阅读之后，猛然感受到巨大的悸动与震撼。小说出版当年，便以毫无争议的优势获得布克奖。