Searching Identity Beyond Generic Boundaries in V.S. Naipaul's The Enigma of Arrival and A Way in the World

Abstract

This paper aims to explore that the purpose of V.S. Naipaul in synthesizing different features of autobiography, fiction, history, journalism, essay and memoir in The Enigma of Arrival and A Way in the World is the quest for his socio-cultural and aesthetic identities as a man and a writer. Naipaul acts as a historian, explorer, author, character, narrator and traveler, and changes the novel form in both these books to create a discourse which is placed in the uncertain spaces between fiction and non-fiction. Both the novels are hybrid creations in which Naipaul goes beyond generic boundaries to demonstrate the difficulties in identifying himself within a political, literary, and cultural tradition. This paper also analyzes that the fusion of multiple literary genres in both the novels is meant to describe Naipaul's persistent struggle to make his own world, to become a writer and to convert his personal experience into literary works.