Shiva Naipaul was the brother of V. S. Naipaul & author of Fireflies" & " The Chip-Chip Gatherers". " Fireflies" his first novel published in 1970 & longlisted for the Lost Man Booker Award in 2010 is set in Naipauls native Trinidad. It
Includes:: a new foreword by Amit Chaudhuri. The Khojas are Trinidads most venerated Hindu family. Rigidly orthodox presiding over acres of ill-kept sugarcane & hoards of jewellery enthusiastically guarded by old Mrs Khoja they seem to have triumphed more by default than by anything else. Only Baby Khoja who is parcelled off into an arranged marriage with a blustering bus driver proves an exception to this rule. Her heroic story
- of resourcefulness strength & survival
- is the gleaming thread in Shiva Naipauls ferociously comic & profoundly sad first novel."