Sir Vidia’s Shadow: A Friendship Across Five Continents

‘Both unputdownable and utterly engaging’

Jonathan Raban, The Times Literary Supplement
‘I started reading Theroux’s Sir Vidia’s Shadow, the story of his friendship with V. S. Naipaul over thirty years and five continents - its origins, development, and sad, enigmatic termination. I couldn’t, as they say, put it down. I don’t know of a more revealing study of the peculiar nature of friendship between professional writers, an unstable compound of empathy, solidarity and rivalry. Theroux’s portrait of Naipaul … may be his finest literary creation’

David Lodge, Guardian Books of the Year
‘Thoroughly compelling. We can call it a memoir, or a biographical sketch, but it has more in it - more candour, more intensity, more angry puzzlement - than we would normally expect from either of these genres’ Sunday Telegraph
‘The portrait of Naipaul that emerges is uproariously believable … Most people are damaged human beings. What distinguishes writers is that they can turn their damage into something life-enhancing. That is what Sir Vidia’s Shadow resplendently does’

John Carey, Sunday Times