Das Rätsel der Ankunft

The Enigma of Arrival is perhaps the most personal novel by Nobel Prize-winning author V. S. Naipaul. The narrator—a young Indian man from Trinidad, like Naipaul himself—documents in meticulous detail his inner and outer arrival in his new chosen homeland, a decades-long process of adaptation. His walks take him past decaying mansions and through rundown parks, while his thoughts meander through the past and present, back to his old homeland and through the new one. It is a profound book about colonialism and uprooting—and about The Enigma of Arrival. To be clear, this is a boring book. But to clarify further: that means nothing at all. Once one has found the subtle twist with which this enigma can be read and solved, one will willingly give up some of the season's more entertaining distractions.