Naipaul’s novel in Chinese

Beijing:  V S Naipaul may be pleasantly surprised to see his Chinese edition of the novel ‘A Bend in the River’ selling well at the Shanghai Book Fair inaugurated on August 13. The Nobel laureate is in China to launch the Chinese translation of his novel.    

‘A Bend in the River’, a 1979 novel set in an unnamed, newly-independent African country, was ranked 83rd on the Modern Library’s list of the 100 best English novels of the 20th century in 1998.

The Chinese edition of the book, published by Nanhai Publishing Co based in the southern island province of Hainan, is ready for orders at major online bookstores including Amazon.cn and Dangdang.com, but readers still nee d to wait for two to three days for delivery, a Xinhua news agency report said. 

Asked whether he was planning to write a book on China, the Indian-origin author, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2001, told media that he does not have the “experience and wisdom” to do so. 

Accompanied by his wife Nadira Naipaul, the author will stay in China for a week. He will also spend his 82nd birthday in China, on August 17.

Naipaul is known in China for his trilogy books about visits to India and “A House for Mr Biswas”, which is set in his native country, Trinidad.