Mr Biswas’ Houses: Finding V.S. Naipaul in Trinidad

by Philip Cartelli

From an airplane window, Trinidad initially appears as a dense green forest rising over the turquoise Caribbean Sea.  Beyond the Northern Range mountains, flat plains of cultivated fields line the horizon as far as the eye can see. Trinidad's recent history has much to do with these sugar cane fields, including the island's production of one of the more unique English-language writers of the last century.

Even before I traveled to Trinidad, my knowledge of the country had been almost entirely informed by V.S. Naipaul's writing--from his early novels to a Caribbean trav...