In A Free State : [Paperback]

The five stories that make up IAFS travel from international waters, America, India, Britain, The West Indies, unnamed Africa to Egypt. If Naipaul’s scope of geography is great then his sense of linking different people in different places together is even greater. Even though the book is made up from different stories that bear no relation to each other they all have a link in their main characters seeing another country and culture as a stranger as they travel from home.
The travel log of a traveller making his way to Egypt sandwiches the middle three stories. These two pieces are the least impressive of the books contents but set the scene for writings on displacement and cultural interaction. Particularly the observations of some Chinese communists at the end of the story highlight the theme of freedom Naipaul is illustrating through out the book- effectively the Chinese try to offer poor Egyptians freedom in the form of Marxism and this remains the most generous proposal during all the stories.
The second story (One Out Of Many) follows an Indian immigrant, Santoosh, in Washington DC who’s financial luck improves in the USA but at the cost to his self-identity and free choice. Santoosh is possibly the most sympathetic character throughout IAFS and his plight brings home to the reader how hard it can be, socially, for a person arriving in a new culture.
The middle piece (Tell Me Who To Kill) shows how circumstances of racism, unfairness and unfulfilled dreams can bring out the anger and disappointment in someone. The unnamed narrator of this story leaves his home in the West Indies to head for London where his brother is supposed to be studying. The circumstances of this story reflect Naipaul’s own life more than the other pieces living, as he did, in Trinidad until going to study at University in England. The sense of injustice and lack of liberty is strongest in this piece and the slow movement towards violence is saddening.
Much of the book is taken up with the next story, its namesake, In A Free State- about two English settlers in an unnamed African state during a car trip that lasts two days. The atmosphere of tension, colonial decay and tribal conflict is powerful in Naipaul’s writing but at the same time the characters of Linda and Bobby are well developed and balanced. Their views- some prejudiced, some liberal and some confused show the workings of white mentality at the very end of colonial influence.
Naipual, in IAFS, shows again his mastery at getting behind characters from all walks of life and corners of the globe. It is this talent that brings a meaningful study of alienation, freedom and West-East relations to near perfection. IAFS is a rare thing in literature- it makes you think, feel and want to stand up and take action. One of the most worthy Booker Prize winners.

In a Free State is one of the great cultural fiction books of the last century, combining fictious characters in real life cultures. The supporting narratives along with the main novel make an excellent thought-provoking read about the differences in culture across the globe, the changes that may seem so subtle for an outsider escalated to great fears by the characters living in those situations.

The first narrative is a brief account of an Indian servant, Santosh, who travels from Bombay to Washington, with his employer. The tale written in first person portrays the struggles that Santosh faces, as he has left his homeland and is placed in a alien culture, he can not understand. The second narrative, Tell Me who to Kill, describes the search of another man pulled between two cultures, as he travels to London to help his brother.

The main novel, is the essence of cultural conflict, set in the war torn continent of Africa, and joins two English characters, working for the government, as they travel along the roads of the state towards the compound. The country has split in two, and tribal conflict has taken over. While the two english characters, Bobby and Linda remain somewhat neutral, in an effort to bring peace, their opposing views make interested conversations on their journey, coupled with numerous incidents along the way, the situation of the country begins to unfold.

An insightful, though sometimes brutal look at the changes in culture and effects of boundaries on continents, countries, tribes, and individual characters. A thoroughly readable book, by the excellent V.S. Naipul whose effortless writing conjures such a real atmosphere.

In a Free State is a sequence of five works - two short stories (the prologue and the epilogue), two forty page novellas and a one hundred and forty page short novel - linked by a common theme. All are about individuals stranded in foreign countries and confronted by alien cultures: in "One out of Many" an Indian servant is almost accidentally transported to Washington, where he finds a niche for himself but remains profoundly alienated from the world around him; "Tell Me Who to Kill" is the tragic story of a West Indian who moves to London; the novel "In a Free State" is about expatriate English civil servants in a recently independent African state torn by civil war; and the epilogue and prologue present the more detached view of an experienced traveller writing in his journal. In a Free State is one of the best works of fiction I have read that deals with the subject of cultural incommensurability and the broken symmetry of colonial relationships. Naipaul's use of multiple stories helps him present a more balanced perspective than a straightforward novel would have allowed, and the subject is one he is at home with. His prose is up to its usual high standard, and there can have been little surprise when In a Free State won the 1971 Booker Prize.

Great to see it being republished