Where to start with V. S. Naipaul

British and Trinidadian novelist, 1932–2018. Won the Booker Prize in 1971.

Best V. S. Naipaul book to start with: A House for Mr Biswas (1961), on 6 of the 17 lists it could have made.

Go to A House for Mr Biswas first. It follows a man in Trinidad who spends his life trying to own a house of his own, and it is comic and sad in equal measure. It is long but easy to follow, and Mr Biswas becomes a very real person.

A Bend in the River was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1979. A trader sets up in a town on a river in a newly independent African country, and the book watches the country’s hopes turn. It is darker and more political than the first.

In a Free State won the Booker in 1971. It is the shortest of the three and combines several pieces of different lengths, so it reads as a collection with the themes of a novel. Try it last, once you know his cold, clear eye.