In a corner of India untouched by anti-colonial agitation Willy Chandran's father stood at odds with the world - aspiring to greatness whilst living out the dreary life marked out for him by his ancestors. In an attempt to defy his past, he marries a low-caste woman only to find himself at the mercy of his own fury.

From this unhappy union the utterly compelling character of Willy Chandran emerges, oddly like his father, naively eager to find something that will place him both in and apart from the world. He is drawn to England and the immigrant community of post war London, its dingy West End clubs, and sexual encounters, and even to the eccentric milieu of the English writer.

But it is Willy's first experience of love that might bring him the fulfillment he so desperately seeks. His wife Ana leads him to her home, a province of Portuguese Africa, a country whose inhabitants are all uncertainly living out the last days of colonialism. Naipaul delineates the relationship between father and son with wonderful clarity and compassion; the comic brilliance of the London scenes and the penetrating descriptions of Africa are hard to beat.