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Book

A house for Mr. Biswas

Call Number

  • FICTION NAIP (CEN)

Edition

First Vintage International edition.

Publication Information

New York : Vintage International, 2001.

Physical Description

564 pages ; 21 cm

Summary

Born the "wrong way" and thrust into a world that greeted him with little more than a bad omen, Mr. Mohun Biswas has spent his forty-six years of life striving for independence. But his determined efforts have met only with calamity. Shuttled from one residence to another after the drowning of his father, for which he is inadvertently responsible, Mr. Biswas yearns for a place he can call home. When he marries into the domineering Tulsi family on whom he indignantly becomes dependent, he takes on myriad vocations in an arduous struggle to weaken their hold over him and purchase a house of his own. A heartrending, dark comedy of manners, A House for Mr. Biswas masterfully evokes a man's quest for autonomy against the backdrop of postcolonial Trinidad. -- Back cover.

Owning a small portion of the Trinidad earth and a respectable house of his own is the dream that sustains Mohun Biswas through a life of frustration and despair after he marries into the domineering Tulsi family.

Subjects