A House for Mr. Biswas
“A marvelous prose epic that matches the best nineteenth-century novels for richness of comic insight and final, tragic power.”
Newsweek
Winner of an AudioFile Earphones Award
One of Time Magazine's Best 100 English-Language Novels from 1923–2005
A New York Public Library Staff Pick of Favorite Books Published in the Last 125 Years
A House for Mr. Biswas, by Nobel and Booker-Prize winning author V.S. Naipaul, is a powerful novel about one man’s struggle for identity and belonging.
Born into poverty, then trapped in the shackles of charity and gratitude, Mr. Biswas longs for a house he can call his own. He loathes his wife and her wealthy family, upon whom he is dependent. Finding himself a mere accessory on their estate, his constant rebellion is motivated by the one thing that can symbolize his independence. The book is striking in its lush and sensual descriptions of Trinidad and was listed as one of Time magazine’s 100 Best English-Language Novels from 1923-2005.
• The second of two V. S. Naipaul novels to be licensed exclusively to Naxos AudioBooks, with the first being The Mimic Men.
• Born in India and educated at Oxford, narrator Sam Dastor’s life bears parallels to the author’s, giving him a deeper understanding of the themes and style of the book.
Praise