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V. S. Naipaul, Again:

I've blogged about V. S. Naipaul once before. I have a tremendous admiration for the author. He came to my county at a very troubled time, when there was an uproar with all the echoes of race and the South. So did many people, including Oprah; the last great Civil Rights march of Hosea Williams was a big story at the time.

Of them all, only Naipaul wrote with clear eyes. His story had no villains; not Hosea, who in spite of his grandiosity and the swagger with which he would charge others with racism, was a decent man who worked hard to help the poor and the downtrodden. Not the people of Forsyth County, whom he portrayed largely kindly. And certainly not Sheriff Walraven, a friend of my family's, whom he portrayed exactly as I remember the man. I quoted from that portrayal at length in the earlier piece.

It's hard to see with clear eyes, and harder still to write in that way. This week, there is an interview in the London Times with the author. I don't think I'll quote from it. I'll just invite you, if you aren't familiar with the man, to meet him.