The Masque of Africa: Glimpses of African Belief (Vintage International) - Softcover

"Engaging. . . . Naipaul's latest African journey is eyewitness reporting at its best."
--Time

"Beautiful and humane. . . . The idea that underpins it is so basic that it achieves a kind of majesty."
--Harper's Magazine

"Neither a romantic's nor an anthropologist's tale. It is a collection of voices that make sense only in relation to one another. . . . What's important is what's being said. . . . [Naipaul's is a] brilliant and elastic mind."
--The New York Times Book Review

"With extraordinary sensitivity, Naipaul registers the beauty of [African] traditions but also captures their cruelty."
--Bookforum

"One of Naipaul's most stirring books. . . . [He] combines the objectivity of a disaster photographer and an understanding of history."
--The Independent (London)

V.S. Naipaul was born in Trinidad in 1932. He came to England on a scholarship in 1950. He spent four years at University College, Oxford, and began to write, in London, in 1954. He pursued no other profession.

His novels include A House for Mr Biswas, The Mimic Men, Guerrillas, A Bend in the River, and The Enigma of Arrival. In 1971 he was awarded the Booker Prize for In a Free State. His works of nonfiction, equally acclaimed, include Among the Believers, Beyond Belief, The Masque of Africa, and a trio of books about India: An Area of Darkness, India: A Wounded Civilization and India: A Million Mutinies Now.

In 1990, V.S. Naipaul received a knighthood for services to literature; in 1993, he was the first recipient of the David Cohen British Literature Prize. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2001. He lived with his wife Nadira and cat Augustus in Wiltshire, and died in 2018.