Collected Short Fiction Read online

  CHRONOLOGY

  1932

  AUTHOR’S LIFE: Birth of Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul in Trinidad (August 17).

  LITERARY CONTEXT: Huxley: Brave New World.

  Faulkner: Light in August.

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: Election of Roosevelt in US. Nazis become largest party in German Reichstag.

  1933

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: Roosevelt announces ‘New Deal’; Hitler becomes German Chancellor.

  1934

  LITERARY CONTEXT: Fitzgerald: Tender is the Night.

  Miller: Tropic of Cancer.

  Waugh: A Handful of Dust.

  1935

  LITERARY CONTEXT: Lewis: It Can’t Happen Here.

  Steinbeck: Tortilla Flat.

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: Nuremberg Laws depriving Jews of citizenship and rights.

  1936

  LITERARY CONTEXT: Faulkner: Absalom, Absalom!

  Eliot: Collected Poems.

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: Outbreak of Spanish Civil War (to 1939). Hitler and Mussolini form Rome–Berlin Axis. Stalin’s ‘Great Purge’ (to 1938).

  1937

  LITERARY CONTEXT: Dos Passos: USA.

  Steinbeck: Of Mice and Men.

  Hemingway: To Have and

  Have not.

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: Japanese invasion of China.

  1938

  LITERARY CONTEXT: Greene: Brighton Rock.

  Waugh: Scoop.

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: Germany annexes Austria; Munich crisis.

  1939

  LITERARY CONTEXT: Steinbeck: The Grapes of Wrath.

  Joyce: Finnegans Wake.

  Miller: Tropic of Capricorn.

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: World War II.

  1940

  LITERARY CONTEXT: Hemingway: For Whom the Bell Tolls.

  Greene: The Power and the Glory.

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: Fall of France; Battle of Britain.

  1941

  LITERARY CONTEXT: Fitzgerald: The Last Tycoon.

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: Japanese attack Pearl Harbor; USA enters war. Hitler invades USSR.

  1942

  LITERARY CONTEXT: Eliot: Four Quartets.

  Camus: The Stranger.

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: Rommel defeated at El Alamein.

  1943–8

  AUTHOR’S LIFE: Attends Queen’s Royal College, Port of Spain.

  1943

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: Allied invasion of Italy.

  1944

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: Allied landings in Normandy.

  1945

  LITERARY CONTEXT: Orwell: Animal Farm.

  Waugh: Brideshead Revisited.

  Borges: Fictions.

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: Defeat of Germany. Atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. End of World War II. Foundation of the United Nations.

  1947

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: Indian independence. Cold War develops.

  1948

  LITERARY CONTEXT: Greene: The Heart of the Matter.

  Paton: Cry, the Beloved Country.

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: Jewish state of Israel comes into existence. Apartheid introduced in South Africa. Gandhi assassinated in India.

  1949

  LITERARY CONTEXT: Orwell: Nineteen Eighty-Four.

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: Chinese Revolution. Foundation of NATO.

  1950–54

  AUTHOR’S LIFE: University College, Oxford; settles in England.

  1950

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: Korean War (to 1953)

  1951

  LITERARY CONTEXT: Frost: Complete Poems.

  Salinger: The Catcher in the Rye.

  1952

  LITERARY CONTEXT: Beckett: Waiting for Godot.

  Steinbeck: East of Eden.

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: Eisenhower elected US President. Accession of Elizabeth II.

  1953

  LITERARY CONTEXT: Bellow: The Adventures of Augie March.

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: Death of Stalin. European Court of Human Rights set up in Strasbourg.

  1954–6

  AUTHOR’S LIFE: Editor, ‘Caribbean Voices’ for the BBC, England.

  1954

  LITERARY CONTEXT: Amis: Lucky Jim.

  Golding: Lord of the Flies.

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: Vietnam War begins.

  1955

  AUTHOR’S LIFE: Marries Patricia Anna Hale.

  LITERARY CONTEXT: Nabokov: Lolita.

  Williams: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

  1956

  LITERARY CONTEXT: Osborne: Look Back in Anger.

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: Suez crisis. British and French begin process of decolonization in Africa. Khrushchev reveals to the Twentieth Party Congress the truth about Stalinist purges. Soviet troops crush Hungarian uprising.

  1957–61

  AUTHOR’S LIFE: Fiction reviewer for the New Statesman. The Mystic Masseur (1957, wins John Llewellyn Rhys Prize); The Suffrage of Elvira (1958); Miguel Street (1959, wins Somerset Maugham Award).

  1957

  LITERARY CONTEXT: Kerouac: On the Road.

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: Civil Rights Act in US. European Economic Community founded.

  1958

  LITERARY CONTEXT: Pasternak: Doctor Zhivago.

  Achebe: Things Fall Apart.

  1959

  LITERARY CONTEXT: Burroughs: Naked Lunch.

  Bellow: Henderson the Rain King.

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: Castro seizes power in Cuba.

  1960

  LITERARY CONTEXT: Updike: Rabbit, Run.

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: Sixty-seven demonstrators killed at Sharpeville, South Africa. Belgian Congo becomes independent.

  1961

  AUTHOR’S LIFE: A House for Mr Biswas.

  LITERARY CONTEXT: Heller: Catch-22.

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: John F. Kennedy elected US President. Erection of Berlin Wall. South Africa excluded from Commonwealth. ANC banned. Yuri Gagarin becomes first man in space.

  1962

  AUTHOR’S LIFE: The Middle Passage.

  LITERARY CONTEXT: Nabokov: Pale Fire.

  Solzhenitsyn: One Day in the

  Life of Ivan Denisovich.

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: Cuban missile crisis. Trinidad and Tobago become independent within the British Commonwealth. Commonwealth Immigrants Act. Algeria granted independence by France.

  1963

  AUTHOR’S LIFE: Mr Stone and the Knights Companion.

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: Assassination of John F. Kennedy.

  1964

  AUTHOR’S LIFE: An Area of Darkness.

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: Khrushchev deposed and replaced by Brezhnev.

  1965

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: India–Pakistan war.

  1966

  LITERARY CONTEXT: Rhys: Wide Sargasso Sea.

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: Mao launches Cultural Revolution in China. Indira Gandhi becomes Prime Minster of India.

  1967

  AUTHOR’S LIFE: A Flag on the Island: The Mimic Men.

  LITERARY CONTEXT: Márquez: One Hundred Years of Solitude.

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: Arab–Israeli Six-Day War. Civil war in Nigeria (Biafra).

  1968

  LITERARY CONTEXT: Solzhenitsyn: Cancer Ward.

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: Student unrest in US and throughout Europe. Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia. Assassination of Martin Luther King. Nixon US President.

  1969

  AUTHOR’S LIFE: The Loss of El Dorado.

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: Resignation of de Gaulle in France. Americans land first man on the moon.

  1970

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: Black Power revolt in Trinidad.

  1971

  AUTHOR’S LIFE: In a Free State. (Wins Booker Prize.)

  LITERARY CONTEXT: Updike: Rabbit Redux.

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: Formation of Bangladesh.

  1972

  AUTHOR’S LIFE: The Overcrowded Barracoon.

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: President Amin expels Asians from Uganda. First Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty.

  1973

  LITERARY CONTEXT: Pynchon:
Gravity’s Rainbow.

  Greene: The Honorary Consul.

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: Arab–Israeli War.

  1974

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: Resignation of Nixon following Watergate scandal.

  1975

  AUTHOR’S LIFE: Guerrillas.

  LITERARY CONTEXT: Levi: The Periodic Table.

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: End of Vietnam War; exodus of the ‘Boat People’ begins. State of Emergency declared in India (to 1977). Guerrilla armies come to power in Angola and Mozambique. USSR and Western powers sign Helsinki Agreement.

  1976

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: Trinidad and Tobago become an independent republic.

  1977

  AUTHOR’S LIFE: India: A Wounded Civilization.

  LITERARY CONTEXT: Morrison: Song of Solomon.

  1979

  AUTHOR’S LIFE: A Bend in the River.

  LITERARY CONTEXT: Calvino: If on a winter’s night a traveler.

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: Margaret Thatcher first woman Prime Minister in UK.Carter and Brezhnev sign SALT-2 arms limitation treaty. Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Iranian revolution; American hostage crisis.

  1980

  AUTHOR’S LIFE: The Return of Eva Péron (with The Killings in Trinidad).

  LITERARY CONTEXT: Burgess: Earthly Powers.

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: An independent Zimbabwe formed.

  1981

  AUTHOR’S LIFE: Among the Believers.

  LITERARY CONTEXT: Rushdie: Midnight’s Children.

  1982

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: Falklands War.

  1983

  AUTHOR’S LIFE: Honorary Fellow, University College, Oxford.

  LITERARY CONTEXT: Narayan: A Tiger for Malgudi.

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: Reagan proposes ‘Star Wars’.

  1984

  AUTHOR’S LIFE: Finding the Centre.

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: Famine in Ethiopia. Indira Gandhi assassinated.

  1985

  LITERARY CONTEXT: Márquez: Love in the Time of Cholera.

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: Riots in South Africa. Gorbachev General Secretary in USSR.

  1986

  LITERARY CONTEXT: Walcott: Collected Poems.

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: Gorbachev–Reagan summit.

  1987

  AUTHOR’S LIFE: The Enigma of Arrival.

  LITERARY CONTEXT: Morrison: Beloved.

  Levi: The Drowned and the Saved.

  1988

  LITERARY CONTEXT: Rushdie: The Satanic Verses.

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: Gorbachev announces big troop reductions. Benazir Bhutto Prime Minister of Pakistan.

  1989

  AUTHOR’S LIFE: A Turn in the South.

  LITERARY CONTEXT: Márquez: The General in his Labyrinth.

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: Collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe. Fall of the Berlin Wall. Tiananmen Square massacre in China.

  1990

  AUTHOR’S LIFE: India: A Million Mutinies Now. Knighthood for Services to Literature.

  LITERARY CONTEXT: Updike: Rabbit at Rest.

  Walcott: Omeros.

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: Nelson Mandela released from jail after 27 years’ imprisonment. German reunification. John Major becomes Prime Minister in UK. Attempted coup by Islamic fundamentalists in Trinidad.

  1991

  LITERARY CONTEXT: M. Amis: Time’s Arrow.

  Okri: The Famished Road.

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: Gulf War. Yeltsin President of Russia. USSR disbanded.

  1992

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: Bill Clinton elected US President. Civil war in former Yugoslavia.

  1993

  AUTHOR’S LIFE: Wins the first David Cohen Prize for Literature.

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: Israel hands over West Bank and Jericho to Palestinians. Storming of White House, Moscow.

  1994

  AUTHOR’S LIFE: A Way in the World.

  LITERARY CONTEXT: Heller: Closing Time.

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: Mandela and ANC sweep to victory in South African elections. Rwandan massacres. Russian military action against Chechen republic.

  1996

  AUTHOR’S LIFE: Wife Patricia Naipaul dies (3 February); marries Nadira Khannum Alvi (15 April).

  LITERARY CONTEXT: Márquez: News of a Kidnapping.

  1997

  AUTHOR’S LIFE: Letters.

  LITERARY CONTEXT: Bellow: The Actual.

  Roth: American Pastoral.

  Roy: The God of Small Things.

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: Tony Blair elected Prime Minister in UK (first Labour government since 1979). Princess Diana is killed in a car accident in Paris.

  1998

  AUTHOR’S LIFE: Beyond Belief.

  LITERARY CONTEXT: Morrison: Paradise.

  Pamuk: My Name is Red.

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: Northern Ireland Referendum accepts the Good Friday Agreement. Clinton orders air strikes against Iraq.

  1999

  AUTHOR’S LIFE: Between Father and Son: Family Letters.

  LITERARY CONTEXT: Coetzee: Disgrace.

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: Serbs attack ethnic Albanians in Kosovo; US leads NATO in bombing of Belgrade.

  2000

  AUTHOR’S LIFE: Reading and Writing: A Personal Account.

  LITERARY CONTEXT: Ishiguro: When We Were Orphans.

  Smith: White Teeth.

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: Milosevic’s regime in the former Yugoslavia collapses. George W. Bush is elected President of the US. Putin becomes Russian President. Palestinian intifadah.

  2001

  AUTHOR’S LIFE: Half a Life; Nobel Prize.

  LITERARY CONTEXT: McEwan: Atonement.

  Franzen: The Corrections.

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: Al-Qaeda terrorist attacks of 9/11. US and allied military action against the Taliban in Afghanistan.

  2002

  AUTHOR’S LIFE: The Writer and the World: Essays.

  LITERARY CONTEXT: Martel: Life of Pi.

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: Guantanamo Bay detention camps established by Bush administration.

  2003

  AUTHOR’S LIFE: Literary Occasions: Essays.

  LITERARY CONTEXT: Atwood: Oryx and Crake.

  Adichie: Purple Hibiscus.

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: Iraq weapons crisis. American and British troops invade Iraq. Civil war in Dafur.

  2004

  AUTHOR’S LIFE: Magic Seeds.

  LITERARY CONTEXT: Munro: Runaway.

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: Terrorist bombings in Madrid. Beslan school hostage crisis. Ten countries join the European Union. Indian Ocean tsunami.

  2005

  LITERARY CONTEXT: Banville: The Sea.

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: Terrorist bombings of 7/7 in London. Major earthquake in Pakistan. Death of Pope John Paul II.

  2006

  LITERARY CONTEXT: Kiran Desai: The Inheritance of Loss.

  Murakami: Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman.

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: Iran announces that it has joined the nuclear club. Conflict between Israeli and Hezbollah forces in South Lebanon. Saddam Hussein hanged.

  2007

  AUTHOR’S LIFE: A Writer’s People: Ways of Looking and Feeling.

  LITERARY CONTEXT: Hosseini: A Thousand Splendid Suns.

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: Gordon Brown succeeds Tony Blair as Labour Prime Minister in UK. Benazir Bhutto assassinated. Anti-government demonstrations in Burma.

  2008

  LITERARY CONTEXT: Pamuk: The Museum of Innocence.

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: Largest global recession since Great Depression begins. Barack Obama becomes first African-American to be elected US President.

  2009

  LITERARY CONTEXT: Mantel: Wolf Hall.

  Byatt: The Children’s Book.

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: Israel invades Gaza. Defeat of Tamil Tigers ends 26 years of civil war in Sri Lanka.

  2010

  AUTHOR’S LIFE: The Masque of Africa: Glimpses of African Belief.

  HISTORICAL EVENTS: Earthquake in Haiti. Major oil spill in Mexican Gulf. David Cameron becomes Conservative Prime
Minister in UK, leading coalition government.

  MIGUEL STREET

  For my Mother and Kamla

  CONTENTS

  1 BOGART

  2 THE THING WITHOUT A NAME

  3 GEORGE AND THE PINK HOUSE

  4 HIS CHOSEN CALLING

  5 MAN-MAN

  6 B. WORDSWORTH

  7 THE COWARD

  8 THE PYROTECHNICIST

  9 TITUS HOYT, I.A.

  10 THE MATERNAL INSTINCT

  11 THE BLUE CART

  12 LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, ALONE

  13 THE MECHANICAL GENIUS

  14 CAUTION

  15 UNTIL THE SOLDIERS CAME

  16 HAT

  17 HOW I LEFT MIGUEL STREET

  1 BOGART

  EVERY MORNING WHEN he got up Hat would sit on the banister of his back verandah and shout across, ‘What happening there, Bogart?’

  Bogart would turn in his bed and mumble softly, so that no one heard, ‘What happening there, Hat?’

  It was something of a mystery why he was called Bogart; but I suspect that it was Hat who gave him the name. I don’t know if you remember the year the film Casablanca was made. That was the year when Bogart’s fame spread like fire through Port of Spain and hundreds of young men began adopting the hardboiled Bogartian attitude.