` In a Free State was conceived in 1969 as a sequence about displacement. There was to be a central novel, set in Africa, with shorter surrounding matter from other places. The shorter pieces from these varied places were intended to throw a universal light on the African material. But then, as the years passed & the world changed, & I felt myself less of an oddity as a writer, I grew to feel that the central novel was muffled & diminished by the surrounding material & I began to think that the novel should be published on its own. This is what, many years after its first publication, my publisher is doing in this edition.` V. S. Naipaul. In a Free State is set in Africa, in a place like Uganda or Rwanda, & its two main characters are English. They had once found liberation in Africa. But now Africa is going sour on them. The land is no longer safe, & at a time of tribal conflict they have to make a long drive to the safety of their compound. At the end of this drive -- the narrative tight, wonderfully constructed, the formal & precise language always instilled with violence & rage -- we know everything about the English characters, the African country, & the Idi Amin-like future awaiting it. This is one of V. S. Naipaul`s greatest novels, hard but full of pity. It won the Booker Prize, in its original edition, in 1971.