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''Magic Seeds'' is a 2004
novel A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itsel ...
by
Nobel laureate The Nobel Prizes ( sv, Nobelpriset, no, Nobelprisen) are awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Swedish Academy, the Karolinska Institutet, and the Norwegian Nobel Committee to individuals and organizations who make out ...
V. S. Naipaul Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul (; 17 August 1932 – 11 August 2018) was a Trinidadian-born British writer of works of fiction and nonfiction in English. He is known for his comic early novels set in Trinidad, his bleaker novels of alienati ...
published by
Knopf Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. () is an American publishing house that was founded by Alfred A. Knopf Sr. and Blanche Knopf in 1915. Blanche and Alfred traveled abroad regularly and were known for publishing European, Asian, and Latin American writers in ...
in the US and
Picador A ''picador'' (; pl. ''picadores'') is one of the pair of horse-mounted bullfighters in a Spanish-style bullfight that jab the bull with a lance. They perform in the ''tercio de varas'', which is the first of the three stages in a stylized bullf ...
in the UK. The novel is set in India and Europe (Berlin and London).


Plot summary

''Magic Seeds'' is a sequel to Naipaul's 2001 novel '' Half a Life''. ''Magic Seeds'' takes over where "Half a Life" left off – with Willie Somerset Chandran, a transplanted Indian, living with his sister Sarojini in Berlin. He was forced to come to Germany after a revolution in an unnamed African country (presumably Mozambique) forced him into exile. He had spent 18 years in Africa, and is ill at ease in the urban European setting. His sister arranges for him to return to India and become involved with communist guerrillas over there. He accepts this mission, but without any real sense of commitment to the rebels cause. He is quickly disillusioned with the guerrillas – their personal shortcomings and the ill-advised tactics of the movement – but remains involved with them partly out of inertia and partly out of fear that his former comrades might kill him. Eventually he gets captured and imprisoned, and finds life in prison preferable to a life on the run. He gets released from the prison when his English friend Roger arranges for an old collection of his short stories to be republished, which causes some embarrassment to the Indian government. Willie moves to London, and there he finds himself in an upper-middle class social set, and he slowly drifts into the life in the suburbs, with all its ironies and quiet sense of claustrophobia.


References

*http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780375707278 Postcolonial novels Novels by V. S. Naipaul Picador (imprint) books 2004 British novels Novels set in Berlin Novels set in London Novels set in India {{postcolonialism-stub