A House for Mr Biswas

Mohun Biswas wants a house of his own, and V. S. Naipaul makes that one modest ambition carry the weight of an entire colonial society. Set in Trinidad across several decades, the novel follows Biswas through sign painting, journalism, a marriage into the formidable Tulsi family, and a run of borrowed and half-built roofs that are never quite his. The comedy is constant and the humiliation is real, and Naipaul writes both without softening either. Read widely as a portrait of the Indian diaspora in the Caribbean, it is equally a study of dignity pursued with almost no resources. This edition belongs to the Picador Collection. A closer look: • A full life traced from birth to the final house, over four decades of Trinidad • Comic set pieces that turn, without warning, into something painful • A central portrait of family obligation and the struggle to live outside it • Picador Collection edition of a novel by a Nobel laureate For readers of modern classics and postcolonial literature, available at Boipoka.