Help
Skip to main content
Basket 0 items, $0.00

US TARIFFS UPDATE | August 2025 | No impact expected on your Presto orders | Read full details

Special offer. Sir V.S. Naipaul: The Mimic Men (Unabridged)

Read by Sam Dastor

Sir V.S. Naipaul: The Mimic Men (Unabridged)

Special offer. Sir V.S. Naipaul: The Mimic Men (Unabridged)

Read by Sam Dastor

Purchase product

Download

Audio formats guide

44.1 kHz, 16 bit, FLAC/ALAC/WAV

Original price ($116.25) Reduced price $58.25

320 kbps, MP3

$90.00

This release includes a digital booklet

Naxos - 50% off Hi-Res Downloads

Special offer ends: 08/07/2026
Stream now lossless, 44.1 kHz, 16 bit
Free 30 day trial

About

Former government minister Ralph Singh is the perpetual outsider: displaced, disillusioned and now living in exile, Ralph reflects on his earlier life and the searing effects of colonialism.

Ralph’s constant estrangement sees him ever attempting to fit into various communities, only to find home in more transient spaces. Born on the colonial island of Isabella, he is one of West India’s many ‘Mimic Men’.

Booker and Nobel Prize-winning author V.S. Naipaul’s sixth novel is a brutal and perceptive commentary on the postcolonial condition of the colonial man.

Contents and tracklist

Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul: The Mimic Men (Unabridged)
Work length10:12:23
  • Recording Venue: Heavy Entertainment, London, United Kingdom
The Mimic Men
Track length9:45
There are many of us around living modestly…
Track length12:14
The priest hallowed the baby with his saliva…
Track length11:51
2: How right our aryan ancestors were…
Track length12:58
Will I be believed if I say that on four successive…
Track length11:38
Everyone reduced, reciprocally, to a succession…
Track length11:31
3: In that period of my life which was to follow…
Track length11:58
So the legitimate desire for succession…
Track length11:04
4: In the active period of my life…
Track length11:14
But how could I resist her quick delight?
Track length12:48
I have spoken of the mood of celebration…
Track length11:30
5: The sanctions my mother had invoked…
Track length12:43
A man, passionate for security, works and saves…
Track length10:38
So we were set apart. And a little above.
Track length11:28
What makes a marriage? What makes a house…?
Track length11:04
I should have slapped her on that mouth…
Track length9:00
6: It only remained now for Sandra to leave.
Track length10:49
7: My first instinct was towards the writing…
Track length2:01
2–1: On Isabella when I was a child…
Track length9:10
It was one of a series of Missionary Martyrs…
Track length8:30
For Cecil childhood was the great time.
Track length9:15
'Singh, does this certificate belong to you?'
Track length8:40
The last book he had been reading…
Track length8:50
2: Cecil sometimes came home with me…
Track length10:26
But there was an awkwardness. My sisters and I…
Track length11:30
The arc of the cork floats steadily contracted.
Track length12:48
The women liked the running shorts, the exposed…
Track length9:37
3: My father became the possessor…
Track length9:00
The sight of the straight empty road…
Track length10:43
Success is success; once it occurs it explains itself.
Track length11:26
He got his laughs and stared mischievously at me.
Track length10:18
'I am not going to touch Isabella Rum…'
Track length10:54
He permitted himself no levity…
Track length8:38
4: I was relieved when the war came…
Track length9:37
I had been able at certain moments…
Track length9:00
The tiny room was suddenly alive.
Track length8:54
5: The house of my mother's family was solid.
Track length12:37
He called this Negro Cecil.
Track length10:39
Poor Gurudeva! The tears were tears…
Track length9:35
6: Just after the end of the war Cecil's father died.
Track length12:02
'Good; you know them. But it isn't the same.'
Track length11:02
One journey had to be made before I left.
Track length10:23
7: I wished then to go back as whole as I had come.
Track length1:45
3–1: As I write, my own view of my actions alters.
Track length11:23
My mood might explain the excitement I felt…
Track length11:01
2: It has happened in twenty places…
Track length9:32
I couldn't be sure where Browne stood in this.
Track length8:32
3: The election was at hand.
Track length10:43
So the Roman house died a second time.
Track length10:25
4: The child, driving with his grandfather…
Track length7:55
His speeches altered, though to the public…
Track length7:13
5: So we brought drama of a sort to the island.
Track length9:28
So there we were. Another message…
Track length8:26
6: Relief: I was astonished by the mood…
Track length9:50
The taxi-driver was not devious.
Track length9:22
'Naturally. I will tell you something else about him.'
Track length8:09
7: It was time to leave. But there was no need…
Track length14:06
8: My arrival was quiet. I was not expected.
Track length10:52
9: I thought when I began this book…
Track length12:00
We have our incidents. But we also have…
Track length11:53
View download progress

Download queue