From the Nobel laureate–a spare, searing new novel about identity and idealism, and their ability to shape or destroy us.

Willie Chandran–whom we first met in Half a Life–is a man in his early forties who has allowed one identity after another to be thrust upon him, as if he could truly know himself by becoming what others imagine him to be. His life has taken him from his native India to England, Africa in its last colonial moment, and Berlin, until finally it returns him to his homeland. Succumbing to the demanding encouragement of his sister–and his own listlessness–Willie joins an underground movement in India ostensibly devoted to unfettering the lower castes. But seven years of revolutionary campaigns and several years in jail convince him that the revolution “had nothing to do with the village people we said we were fighting for…[that] our ideas and words were more important than their lives and their ambitions for themselves.” And, as well, he feels himself further than ever “from his own history and…from the ideas of himself that might have come to him with that history.”

When Willie returns to England where, thirty years before, his psychological and physical wanderings began, he finds the fruit of another unexpected social revolution (more magic seeds), and comes to see himself as a man “serving an endless prison sentence”–a revelation that may finally release him into his true self.

Magic Seeds is a masterpiece, written with all the depth and resonance, the clarity of vision and precision of language, that are the hallmarks of this brilliant writer.

奈保爾(Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul)，英籍印度裔作傢。1932年8月17日齣生於中美洲特立尼達和多巴哥。18歲赴牛津大學求學，獲得文學學士學位後定居英國。曾任BBC“加勒比之聲”欄目主持人3年。遊走世界各地寫作多年，批判發展中社會的精神和物質的雙重匱乏，語多辛辣詼諧。主要作包括《靈異推拿師》（約翰·盧埃林·裏斯紀念奬），《米格爾大街》（薩莫塞特·毛姆奬），《黑暗之地》，《印度：一個傷痕纍纍的文明》，《自由國度》（1971年布剋奬），《河灣》，《半生》，《魔種》等。1990年獲英國皇室封爵；1993年，成為英國大衛·柯恩文學奬首位獲奬者，該奬旨在錶彰“尚在人世的英國作傢一生的成就”。2001年，因“作品中兼具犀利的敘述與正直的洞察，迫使我們正視那些被壓抑的曆史的存在”，被授予諾貝爾文學奬。