The first of Naipaul's twelve novels tells of the meteoric rise and hilarious metamorphosis of Ganesh Ramsumair from failed primary schoolteacher and struggling masseur to author, revered mystic, peerless politician and the most popular man in Trinidad.

Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul Kt. TC (born August 17, 1932, in Chaguanas, Trinidad and Tobago), commonly known as V. S. Naipaul, is a British novelist and essayist of Indo-Trinidadian descent. He is widely considered to be one of the masters of modern English prose.[1] He has been awarded numerous literary prizes including the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize (1958), the Somerset Maugham Award (1960), the Hawthornden Prize (1964), the W. H. Smith Literary Award (1968), the Booker Prize (1971), and the David Cohen Prize for a lifetime's achievement in British Literature (1993). V. S. Naipaul was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2001, the centenary year of the award.