(London), Deutsch, (1975). A novel set in an unidentified post-colonial Caribbean island, based on the author's native Trinidad, which the New York Times Book Review called the best novel of the year, and which was the Nobel Prize winner's "breakthrough" book in terms of his dealing with political, social, and personal issues in a critical, fully mature, and nuanced way: no one else was writing about these kinds of ethnically-driven political and social issues with the personal experience, insight, critical capacity and articulateness of Naipaul up to that time, wherein every cultural assumption was called into question and subject to critical scrutiny, and neither the status quo nor its politically correct inverse was allowed to go unexamined and unremarked upon. This is the uncorrected proof copy of the first edition, issued in the UK and dated the 21st of February, 1975. Spine slanted, and title and author written on the spine in red ink. A near fine copy of an extremely uncommon proof of a milestone book in the author's career, which may be seen as putting him fully onto the trajectory that led to the Nobel. [#032697] SOLD