The Return of Eva Peron with the Killings in Trinidad

by V.S. Naipaul

Con il suo inconfondibile tocco, Naipaul ricostruisce tre esemplari parabole umane che si traducono in altrettante variazioni sul potere in tutti i suoi toni, dal tragico al grottesco. La figura di Mobutu, dominus del Congo/Zaire, è un condensato di dissimulazione ideologica, con la sua capacità di perpetuare le leggi dispotiche del colonialismo belga sotto una sorta di «socialismo africano ancestrale» e di spacciare per «rivoluzione» maoista l’esercizio crudele della regalità. Michael de Freitas alias Michael X, sedicente attivista per i diritti civili, finito sulla forca per aver massacrato alcuni affiliati a Trinidad, è uno dei tanti riverberi farseschi dell’Africa della diaspora: un «uomo del Black Power senza potere e senza la pelle nera», che si impone come mito underground solo nell’Inghilterra «provinciale, ricca e sicura» in cui ha trascorso la giovinezza come pusher e magnaccia. La vicenda del regime peronista ha il suo contrappunto nella passione del popolo per Evita, aspirante attrice emersa dalla «cittadina più tetra della pampa», e predestinata a eternare i suoi tratti fantasmatici e sensuali nella fissità dell’imbalsamazione, dopo la morte ad appena trentatré anni. E cornice ideale del trittico è il magistrale saggio su Joseph Conrad, vero corpo a corpo critico con lo scrittore che più di ogni altro ha segnato Naipaul, dove il personaggio chiave di Cuore di tenebra diventa la sintesi archetipica delle tre parabole che abbiamo attraversato.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Essays, Politics, Travel, Literature, Nobel Prize

Paperback

First published January 1, 1980

About the author

V. S. Naipaul was a British writer of Indo-Trinidadian descent known for his sharp, often controversial explorations of postcolonial societies, identity, and displacement. His works, which include both fiction and nonfiction, often depict themes of exile, cultural alienation, and the lingering effects of colonialism.
He gained early recognition with A House for Mr Biswas, a novel inspired by his father’s struggles in Trinidad. His later works, such as The Mimic Men, In a Free State, and A Bend in the River, cemented his reputation as a masterful and incisive writer. Beyond fiction, his travelogues and essays, including Among the Believers and India: A Million Mutinies Now, reflected his critical perspective on societies in transition.
Naipaul received numerous accolades throughout his career, including the Nobel Prize in Literature, awarded for his ability to blend deep observation with literary artistry. While praised for his prose, his often unsparing portrayals of postcolonial nations and controversial statements sparked both admiration and criticism.

Reviews

[dianne b. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A story told in fantastic V.S. Naipaul fashion, overtly, of what happened to the oh-so-revered body of Evita, the true leader of the people, the shirtless ones, after she, well her life spirit, let's say, departed this mortal coil. But of course within the within, there are stories of all the others who needed her 'alive' or at least around, unforgotten, present, in order to rule effectively - and those whose loathing of her knew no bounds.

Personal anecdote: a woman i trained with (we did our fellowships at the same medical university together and became great, permanent friends) from a well-to-do family in Buenos Aires, has a leg very misshapen and weak residua of polio. But she "got" polio 2 years after the vaccine became available? It just so happened that ALL of the polio vaccine in Argentina had been stamped with "EP" (for Eva Peron) so when Juan Peron was finally ousted and the oligarchs once again had control, the depths of their hatred declared that everything with her initials or name on it had to be destroyed. So, no polio vaccine for my friend = a significant number of polio cases in years after the disease was declining significantly in neighboring countries. End of (i hope relevant) anecdote.

If you've been to La Recoleta you know where Evita's remains finally ended up (with another poke at the oligarchs, but paternity is paternity, even if outside the bond of matrimony). The wacky, convoluted, voyage of those (priceless?) remains is truly unbelievable.

I focus on a small part of this book, and some editions apparently have 4 essays, not just the 2 that are in the edition i have. But there is much more about Argentina, including an interesting bit about Borges (who actually supported the military junta during the Dirty War). The Killings in Trinidad is also engaging, but since i have no (relevant) anecdote, i'll just say - it's all a very good read. i believe i've read it at least 4 times, cover to (barely taped on) cover. And i will probably do it again.

[Come Musica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tre figure che hanno segnato la storia: Michael X, Eva Perón e Mobutu.
Tre personaggi da osservare da vicino, per capire la storia di tre Paesi.

"Pochi si rendono conto che la vita, l’essenza stessa della personalità, l’idea di ciò che è o non è alla portata, del punto fino al quale ci si può spingere, dipendono tutte e solo dalla consapevolezza di vivere in un ambiente protetto. Il coraggio, l’autocontrollo, la sicurezza di sé; le emozioni, i princìpi; i pensieri, solenni o minimi che siano, non appartengono all’individuo, bensì alla folla: alla folla, e alla sua fede cieca nella forza irresistibile delle istituzioni e della morale, nel potere della polizia e delle opinioni."

Si legge all'inizio del libro: “Questi testi, fatta eccezione per alcune aggiunte a Michael X e al Ritorno di Eva Perón, sono stati scritti fra il 1972 e il 1975. Hanno colmato un vuoto creativo: dalla fine del 1970 alla fine del 1973 non mi si è offerto alcun romanzo. Questo spiega forse l’intensità di alcuni testi, e la loro natura ossessiva. I temi si ripetono, che si tratti di Argentina, di Trinidad o del Congo. Non posso attribuire loro un’unità più profonda; ma va detto che, grazie a questi viaggi e a questi scritti, alla fine i romanzi arrivarono. Gli omicidi a Trinidad è stato pubblicato, dopo molti ritardi dovuti a questioni legali, sul «Sunday Times». Tutto il resto è apparso sulla «New York Review of Books».”

Tre saggi su tre personaggi storici che hanno vissuto in ambienti diversi e che trovano il loro trait d'union in Conrad.

Si legge ne Il ritorno di Eva Perón: "Joseph Conrad vide i belgi all’opera, e in Cuore di tenebra ne coglie la frenesia. «Parlavano come sordidi bucanieri: incoscienti senza baldanza, avidi senza audacia e crudeli senza coraggio; in tutta la cricca non c’era un briciolo di lungimiranza o di serie intenzioni, e non sembravano rendersi conto che queste cose sono necessarie per agire nel mondo». Queste parole ben si adattano alla frenesia argentina; descrivono il clima e l’assenza di moralità dell’impresa argentina, responsabili, generazione dopo generazione, del fallimento di oggi."

Anche in Un nuovo re per il Congo: Mobutu e il nichilismo dell’Africa, c'è il riferimento a Conrad: "Per Joseph Conrad, Stanleyville – la stazione delle cascate Stanley, nel 1890 – era il cuore di tenebra. Lì, nel romanzo di Conrad, regnava Kurtz, il commerciante d’avorio precipitato dall’idealismo alla ferocia, riportato agli albori dell’umanità dalla natura selvaggia, dalla solitudine e dal potere, con una casa circondata di teschi impalati. Settant’anni dopo, su quest’ansa del fiume, si verificò qualcosa di simile alla vicenda immaginata da Conrad. Ma l’uomo del «mistero inconcepibile di un’anima che non conosceva ritegno, fede e paura» era nero, non bianco; ed era impazzito entrando in contatto non con la natura selvaggia e gli istinti primordiali, ma con la civiltà instaurata da quei pionieri che ora riposano sul monte Ngaliema, sopra le rapide di Kinshasa."

Ma perché è proprio Conrad che unisce le figure di Michael X, Eva Perón e Mobutu? A rispondere è lo stesso Naipaul nell'ultimo saggio su Conrad a chiusura del libro: "Per Conrad, tuttavia, il dramma e la verità non stanno negli avvenimenti ma nell’analisi: nell’individuare le fasi della presa di coscienza attraverso la quale un uomo senza passioni riconosce infine l’importanza della passione."

Sul mio canale Telegram in sintesi
t.me/ventaglip/3010

[Pedro · Rating 3 out of 5]

The return of Eva Perón (El retorno de Eva Perón) es una crónica de la visita que Naipaul realizó a Buenos Aires, Argentina, cerca de 1972.
Por esos tiempos se preveía la inevitable vuelta del mítico Juan Perón al país después de dieciocho años de exilio forzado, lo cual generaba un clima de efervescencia, y expectativas imposibles de cumplir, según lo demostrara el paso del tiempo. Y junto con él, también el féretro del cuerpo embalsamado de la aún más mítica Eva Duarte de Perón, su segunda esposa y que jugara un papel fundamental durante el primer gobierno peronista, y muriera a los treinta y tres años. La historia del cadáver y el destino del féretro (que fuera escondido por las autoridades militares durante quince años) constituyó un mito en sí mismo, muy bien retratado por Rodolfo Walsh en su cuento Esa mujer, y luego por Tomás Eloy Martínez en su novela Santa Evita.
En ese contexto, el verbo satírico de Naipaul pica como una avispa, y se extiende también a las conductas de las personas a quienes conoce.
Aunque por momentos se perciben ciertos malentendidos vinculados a su imposibilidad de comprender ciertos significados (o interpretarlos erróneamente), tiene sus momentos entretenidos.
El libro incluye también una crónica de cierta tragedia en Trinidad, que no he leído.

V. S. Naipaul nación en la isla de Trinidad (parte del país Trinidad y Tobago, en el Caribe) de padres que migraron de India, y que conformaron una colonia en la cual vivió su infancia; posteriormente se trasladó a estudiar a Gran Bretaña, cuya nacionalidad adoptó, y donde vivió hasta su muerte en 2018. En 2001 recibió el Premio Nobel de Literatura.

[Julio Won't Be Censored · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The West's favorite explainer of all things East". ---Edward Said on V.S. Naipul

Of course, the Said quote came before Naipul became Sir V.S. and won the Noble Prize in Literature. "The most feared item on the streets of Buenos Aires is the Ford Falcon". Thus begins Naipul's title essay; an investigation and musings on the military regime that terrorized Argentina from 1976 to 1983. The Ford Falcon was the not-so-secret car preferred by the junta's no-so-secret police to round up students, trade unionists, and other 'subversives", none to be seen again. (This also worked in reverse. When I visited B.A. in 1988 one taxi driver told me "during the dictatorship I was afraid to pick up a passenger and when I did I never spoke to him. He might be a secret policeman.") Yet the bulk of this essay, just like the rest of the collection, is not on the politics of the dictatorship, or heaven forbid foreign backing for the coup that brought it to power, but on what Naipul calls "the pathology" of Third World nations, including the once-rich Argentina. His symbol for this pathology is the way Evita Peron's body was moved around the globe following her husband Juan Peron's overthrow and exile. The coffin was eventually tracked down to Italy and then shipped to Peron's home in exile, Spain. Only with the restoration of democracy in 1983 could Evita come home.Other essays in this anthology mull the murders perpetrated by Black nationalists in Naipul's native Trinidad and the Stalinesque cult of personality surrounding Zaire's Mobutu Seko Seko. Starting to see a pattern here? Naipul believes the Eastern and Southern nations of the world are psychologically sick. Never mind colonialism, slavery, debt, or CIA-sponsored coups. The natives are to blame---for everything. Naipul would later apply the same logic to the land of his Hindu ancestors, INDIA: A WOUNDED CIVILIZATION, and the whole Muslim world, AMONG THE BELIEVERS and BEYOND BELIEF. Recommended to those who can't get enough of blaming the victim.

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

I return to another of my idols of thirty years ago, only to find that I no longer find the old magic in evidence. Over the years (but not for the last fifteen years), I have read most of Naipaul's fiction and nonfiction. But since I began to travel and see things for myself, I now begin to regard him as one who likes to stir troubled waters. There are three essays in this book, one about certain clueless Black Power advocates in Trinidad, another about Argentina during some of its worst days in the last century (the return of Juan Peron and the military dictatorship that followed), and about Zaire under Mobuto Sese Seko. Finally, there is a curious short piece on Joseph Conrad, whom Naipaul finds somewhat mystifying.

My choice to re-read this book was because of its centerpiece essay, "The Return of Eva Peron," to which I would give four stars. On the plus side, he does an excellent job of describing the poisonous atmosphere of the Peron return, the inept rule of his widow Isabelita, and the dictatorship of the generals and admirals under Videla, who is now serving a life sentence for mass murder. On the minus side, he blames the Argentinian people for their plight, slamming even Jorge Luis Borges for his unrealistic view of the country's history, without thinking that Borges sought a kind of metaphysical escape in his stories such as "The Aleph," "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius," and "The Zahir."

But then if Naipaul is mystified by Conrad, he would be even more off the beam with Borges. It seems almost as if Naipaul were living in a kind of bubble caused by his intense background in Trinidad and England. I still think he is an excellent writer, but now I begin to wonder about his perceptions.

[Kevin Tole · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like most of us, there are some authors that grab you, and others that do quite the opposite. I have always had problems with Salman Rushdie and Thomas Pynchon and I couldn't quite put my finger on exactly why. Then there are others you develop an aversion for, for one reason or another; for me that would include Julian Barnes, Italo Calvino and Boris Pasternak. For me V.S.N. is firmly in the first camp. It took me an interminable length of time to finish A House for Mr Biswas and at the end of it I didn't quite like it or see what all the fuss was over.

What brought me to this (as the unbroken link of one book to another to another takes you) was reading Carlos Gamerro's The Islands, as good a piece of contemporary Argentinean writing as you are likely to get about pre- and post-Falklands Argentina, followed by Jimmy Burns'The Land That Lost Its Heroes: The Falklands, the Post-War, and Alfonsin. This book of VSN is cited by Burns and it indeed is an excellent follow on from those two.

Written between 1972 and 1975 and published in either NYRB or The Sunday Times these were articles that clearly for VSN needed writing and reading about the abuse of power with a final assessment of the writing of Joseph Conrad.

The first long essay concerns the gangster and somewhat messianic figure of Michael X (Michael de Freitas, Abdul Malik), relevant particularly to VSN with its setting in Trinidad. He rose to prominence in London as an enforcer for the slum landlord Peter Rachman. de Freitas espoused the Black Power movement, and became the British face and front of American Black Power. His operations in London all had the sense of fronts with little solid grounding. When things became too hot for him in London he emigrated back to Trinidad, starting a black commune there.The whole of Michael X's life comes across as a complete fraud and VSN is utterly unforgiving in his investigation of him. All the people associated with him were either drop outs, chancers and wasters but de Freitas played on a sense of liberal guilt to gain money and power and basically to con people. Reading this makes you think that Michael X was suffering from some mental condition, but VSN is not going to give him a get out. The decriptions of Malik make him out as a complete actor. But VSN is just as scathing against the white liberals that supported him - Jill Tweedie of The Guardian, Colin McGlashan of The Observer, even John Lennon and Yoko Ono, who wanted to be associated with the idea of Black militancy and provided Malik not only with money but the oxygen of publicity. Malik was nothing more than a radical entertainer playing to an audience of white middle class liberals that either wanted to or had already dropped out. VSN's view is that the politics of American Black Consciousness just could not be estabished in Trinidad, the problem there being not blackness but a lack of technological development. Malik and his associates were captivated by their own myths of demagoguery to the extent of murdering anyone that stood in the way or was perceived as a threat within his 'movement'. He was convicted of murder and hung in Trinidad in 1975.

The essay giving its name to the collection is a thorough examination of power in Argentina, as well as side swipes at Jorge Luis Borges and an examination of Uruguay. He looks at los desaparecidos as well as the Montoneros movement. VSN makes much of the montoneros not knowing quite who they were or what they wanted and as having lost track of history. In part he sees them as responsible for the backlash from the police and military as a kind of 'kiddy-on' set of revolutionaries taking their inspriration from the European student militancy from '68 onwards. This made me ask the question on whether VSN is as right wing as he comes across and whether it was this that put me off his fiction. What he does do is give a sense of the chaos that suffused Argentina at this time and the impending sense of doom, a giving over to spiritual forces rather than an acceptance of natural causes and an attempt to tackle them through political and economic means. He is also, to give him his dues, quite clear on the need to tackle the 'stasis' that saw torture and oppression as just a part of Latin American culture, that the real enemy was materialism, that in a sense all the ills resulted from the prosperity of the masses, that they wanted really to remain feudal. I felt at a number of times when reading this essay that too often VSN makes excuses for behavioural patterns and makes scapegoats of movements and people including Borges as being a great poet but failing to tackle the reality of the situation. This becomes even more apparent when he jumps across the Mar del Plata to talk about Uruguay and the Tupamoros which he sees as little more than class war between middle class playing-at 'revolutionaries' and working class police. What VSN seems to be describing is an interregnum between the death of Peronism (though it continues to live) and the dictatorial takeover by the military Junta. No one had any certainty for the future or belief in the past.

"Still it seems odd about Perón; he spoke so much about the greatness of the country, but in himself, and in his movement, he expressd so many of his country's weaknesses and revealed them as irremediable."

Needless to say he also discusses machismo but fails to make a case as to why the Argentinean male was so diminished such that all that remained was football, racing cars, cheap bought sex, and the facade of stylishness.

"But machismo is really about the conquest and humiliation of women. In the sterile society it is the victimisation by the simple of the simpler."

This essay is important and needs to be read in the context of what happened providing background from a disinterested observer. His contention is that Argentina was reacting like a spoilt desecrated child left out of everything till it finally rebels and over-reacts to the barbarianism that has been inflicted upon it - a natural sense of injustice to not having been done right to - but that the answer in Perónism was founded on nothing but words and empty promises. There was great talk of reform but little implementation.

This is followed by an analysis of Mobutu and the Congo. Mobutu was little more than an assumed god-like dictator quite given to all the evils of corruption and power and terror. What he sees in Mobutu could be applied to so many self-pumped up African leaders at the time - the replacement of colonialism with a ersatz Africanism which was really little more than the cult of the individual based on power fed on corruption and the imposition of will in the face of inertia. It all became wishful thinking in the lack of policy and direction backed by the threat of violence. Africanisation without foundation became bogus and just another form of pillage (cf. Angola and Zimbabwe), merely nihilistic and self-harming; merely dismantlings of what was to produce a state of do-as-little-as-possible-without-losing-face despite complete incompetency. There was, as VSN sees it, little sense of personal, state or societal responsibility, merely selfish desire and personal greed.

In the last essay VSN relooks at the fiction of Conrad which carries many undercurrents of the qualities that he has decribed in Michael X, Latin America and Africa. And whilst praising Conrad he also manages to denigrate his legacy of fiction.

These are interesting essays brought together in one book. You may not agree with much of what VSN writes here but they are interesting glimpses into these societies and situations and form sense of historical background seen through the eyes of a s0mewhat biased and perhaps blind-eyed reporter. They make a framework of 'one view' which is worth considering.

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

So at various stages in the mid-70's Sir Vidia took it upon himself to visit Argentina. Almost half this book is given over to his impressions of the country during the second phase of Peronism, and the aftermath, during the beginning of the military dictatorship that followed. (Other essays in the book deal with post-colonialism in Trinidad and Zaire, with a brief meditation on Conrad's "Heart of Darkness").

It's not that I can find factual fault with anything that Sir V writes about Argentina. It's just that it all seems so ... mean-spirited ... In particular, his characterization of Borges (who was his host on at least more than one occasion) smacks of biting the hand that fed him.

The main essay does give one a fairly jaundiced, but probably fairly accurate, view of the unique political situation in Argentina as it was in the mid-70's. However, several times while I read it, the words "cheap shot' crossed my mind. It may leave you, as it did me, with a distinctly bad taste in your mouth. The overarching impression one retains has less to do with the unfortunate Argentines and much more to do with thinking that Sir Vidia, for all his brilliance was definitely NOT A NICE HUMAN BEING.

I suspect that I am not the first to make this particular observation. Whether or not you feel it is relevant is entirely up to you.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

It maybe 50 years since Naipaul wrote these essays but they still resonate today in 2025. Michael X the Trinidadian who was a conman trying to emulate Malcolm X. He fooled a lot of people and had the support of John Lennon. His utopian commune a mirage with it all ending in the brutal murders of middle class Benson and Skerritt. Chadee’s description of the murders is chilling and so matter of fact. Naipaul hit the nail on the head with Michael X likely to be not hanged if his lawyer had gone for an insanity plea.

I think Naipaul really doesn’t like Argentina. He is scathing of Peron and the cult like devotion of his followers. The machismo culture and the catastrophic collapse of the country’s economy which continues 50 years later. The corruption and lack of anything beyond football and oppression of women in its society is shameful.

Mobutu managed to stay in power in the Congo until just before his death in 1997. The despot makes Idi Amin look like an amateur in the breadth of violence and corruption. Zaire today is again in the throes of war and violence so little has changed except fragmentation of the different rebel groups.

The last essay is about the author Conrad and how Naipaul grew up reading his stories. Conrad’s experiences as a merchant seaman and the stories he heard were used imaginatively in his novels. The theme of the myth of colonialism being good and the themes of fidelity and morality are throughout his works.

[Kuszma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Szeretem az efféle fúziós esszéket: tanulmány a XX. századi Argentínáról, belefőzött Borgessel, és körítve egy kis Uruguay-jal. Ha Borges felől közelítjük meg, olyan irodalmi tanulmánynak láthatjuk, ami a lehető legtágabb kontextusba van helyezve. Ha viszont társadalomtudományi oldalról indulunk el, Borges az arisztokratikus magába zártságával egyfajta illusztrációja az argentin problémának – ami nyilván irodalmi értelemben mit se változtat zsenialitásán. Naipaul finoman fest meg egy Argentínát, ami talán minden más országnál jobban belemerült a „régen-minden-jobb-volt” nosztalgiába. Ha megnézzük Buenos Airest, egy lüktető európai nagyvárost látunk – ám a látszólagos gazdagság csak múzeumi díszlet, a századforduló, a Belle Epoque maradványa, egy olyan időszaké, amikor ez az ország gazdagabb volt Nagy-Britanniánál is, hála a mezőgazdasági termékek magas világpiaci árának. Ám ez az idő elmúlt, az állam lejtőre került*, inflációk és hiperinflációk követték egymást, és mára a dicsőség emléke csak valamiféle melankolikus hangulat, vagy értelmetlen melldöngetés. Naipaul verziójában a Perón házaspár (különösen Eva) végső soron esszenciája az argentin életérzésnek – abszurd (és eleve kudarcra ítélt) módon helyezi beléjük bizalmát az istenadta nép, mert saját akaratának kifejeződését látja bennük. Csakhogy ez az akarat köszönő viszonyban sincs a realitásokkal, így a bukás is borítékolható – mondja ez a velős és okos kötet, én pedig hiszek neki. Nem csak azoknak ajánlható, akik Dél-Amerika vagy Borges iránt érdeklődnek, Naipaul fejtegetései ugyanis olyan jelenséget érintenek, ami nem korlátozódik az óceán egyik vagy másik partjára.

* Az utóbbi időben két olvasmányom is kiemelten foglalkozott az argentin gazdasági összeomlás folyamatával (Niall Ferguson: A pénz felemelkedése, Acemoglu-Robinson: Miért buknak el a nemzetek?), úgyhogy momentán nagyon ki vagyok művelve latin-amerikai krízisekből. Ezeknek fényében is ki lehet jelenteni, hogy Naipaul, ha természetesen mélyre ható gazdasági elemzésekre nem is vállalkozik, de rendkívül érzékenyen és pontosan ragadja meg az eseményt.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some writers achieve greatness without being colossal prats; V.S. Naipaul was not one of them. That is rather to his advantage.

There are more level-headed accounts of Michael X and his peers than this one. The writer Diana Athill was Naipaul’s publisher. Unlike Naipaul, Athill actually knew Michael and his lover, Gale Benson. That is why her accounts, in her memoirs Make-Believe and Stet, ring not only truer but wiser, and ideally should be read straight afterwards.

The major difference is their understanding of Benson’s character. It spreads over the text like a spill of wine. In Naipaul’s account Benson is far worse than the man who betrays and murders her. The author’s disgust is central to his point. Benson, money ‘oozing’ out of her clothes, is a ‘fake among fakes’, a middle-class drop-out queening around the commune. This is linked to Michael’s infant and ultimate downfall. Michael never understood ‘the section of the middle class that knows only that it is secure, has no views, only reflexes and scattered irritations, and sometimes indulges in play: the people who keep up with “revolution” as with the theatre.’

To call Benson deluded is an understatement. But she was no secret agent or slummer. In real life, she had more in common with the girls that flocked to Charles Manson. She was a desperate for a guru of any kind; her lack of self-esteem bordered on pathological. Far from being secure in her status as a white woman, she was clinging to her illusions with white knuckles. Naipaul’s eagerness to bend facts to make a point distorts the book just as it distorts his novel Guerrillas, which was plainly inspired by the killings. The film The Bank Job is another gorblimied version of the story.

But what distorts Naipaul’s writing also quickens it. That is one of the book’s odd fascinations. Naipaul is constantly working himself into a fit of rage but also rather enjoying it - the way a sadist might beat an adulterous spouse while also demanding all the juicy details. Other people’s rage pulls their prose to bits. Naipaul’s tightens his.

‘Her execution, on January 2, 1972, was sudden and swift. She was held by the neck and stabbed and stabbed. At that moment all the lunacy and play fell from her; she knew who she was then, and wanted to live. Perhaps the motive for the killing lay only in that: the surprise, a secure life ending in an extended moment of terror. She fought back; the cuts on her hands and arms would show how strongly she fought back. She had to be stabbed nine times. It was an especially deep wound at the base of the neck that stilled her; and then she was buried in her African-style clothes. She was not yet completely dead: dirt from her burial hole would work its way into her intestines.’

Naipaul also sees red in Argentina during the years of Peronism. Political violence is linked to the ‘cult of the macho.’ No point complaining about toxic masculinity, for Naipaul sees that ‘diminished men, turning to machismo, diminish themselves further, replacing even sex by a parody.’ When sexual conquest is a duty, passion, attraction and skill are jettisoned. Even the act itself, once easily bought in the brothel, matters little: the conquest is only complete when the macho has sodomised a woman. From this Naipaul draws a wider conclusion.

’But the buggering of women is of special significance in Argentina and other Latin American countries. The Church considers it a heavy sin, and prostitutes hold it in horror. By imposing on her what prostitutes reject, and what he knows to be a kind of sexual black mass, the Argentine macho, in the main of Spanish or Italian peasant ancestry, consciously dishonours his victim.’

The book leaves a bitter taste, but the best medicine often does. Gulp a little.

[Patrick McCoy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A friend once mentioned that he had read an interesting book of essays by V.S. Naipaul with a major one about Eva Peron, The Return of Eva Peron with Killings in Trinidad (1980), and I found an out of print copy to read since the essay intrigued me. All of the pieces, according to the author's note, were written between 1972 and 1975 (save later additions to the two first essays), when Naipaul was not writing a novel. All the essays appeared in The New York Review of Books save "The Killings in Trinidad," which was published in the the London Sunday Times. The four essays are: "Michael X and the Black Power Killings in Trinidad," "The Return of Eva Peron," "A New King for the Congo: Mobutu and the Nihilism of Africa, and "Conrad's Darkness."

The first essay and perhaps the most obscure for me, but obviously the most interesting for Naipaul, concerns murders that take place at a Black Power commune in Trinidad that is 92 pages in total. I can see why these event were of interest to Naipaul in particular since they concern race, class, the concept of the writer, and Naipaul's home country of Trinidad which he left for England not unlike the former criminal, would be writer-activist Michael X.

"The Return of Eva Peron" read like a New Yorker "Letter From ... Buenos Aires," in that it is a summation of that nation during the time of Naipaul's several visits between 1972 and 1977. Thus the essays has five parts: "1. The Corpse at the Iron Gate" from 1972 which discusses the legacy of Eva and Juan Peron, "2. "Borges and the Bogus Past," which doesn't come off as a tribute to the great Argentinian author-more like a character assassination, "3. Kamikaze in Montevideo," which looks at Argentina's little neighbor Uruguay and its financial meltdown in 1973, "4. Brothels Behind the Graveyard," written in 1974 is more about politics and the history of Argentina which decimated its Indian population early in the 20th century, "5. The Terror," written in 1977 and discusses torture, politics, and death and the legacy of these things in the country. One is being to see that Naipaul is drawn to developing countries that were former colonies of European powers that deep in the throes of identity crisis'.

In "A New King for the Congo: Mobutu and the Nihilism of Africa," Naipaul looks at the former Belgian colony of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, then known as Zaire and the despotic rule of its former leader Mobutu Sese Senko in 1975. Again one sees a trend in the interests of Naipaul-former colonies of European powers. He sets the scene from which in the recent past Muhammad Ali beat George Foreman in the "Rumble in the Jungle," of which Naipaul sees more as a publicity stunt for Mobutu. Mobutu ruled until 1997 when there was civil war in which Laurent Kabila wrestled power form Mobutu. Echoes of Conrad are seen in this report, as inexplicably they were present in the Eva Peron piece.

Thus, it should come as no surprise that Naipaul discusses that author's influence on him in "Conrad's Darkness." One might walk away from the essay with the notion that Naipaul has improved upon the author's work. All in all a fascinating collection of articles from the early to late 70s.

[Paolo · Rating 2 out of 5]

Non conoscevo Naipaul (a dire il vero non l'avevo neanche sentito mai nominare, pur avendo vinto il Nobel del 2000).
Complice titolo ruffiano e copertina adescatrice nella migliore tradizione Adelphi, compro incuriosito.
In realtà sono tre saggi, il primo dei quali ha luogo a Trinidad e Tobago (paese dell'autore) ed ha per oggetto un' efferata catena di delitti all'interno di gruppo di sedicenti attivisti per i diritti civili dei neri, in realtà una quasi setta - woodoo, il cui animatore (che non è nemmeno un vero nero) ha plagiato alcuni inconsapevoli.
Il secondo tratta sì dell'Argentina, e di sfuggita anche del mito di Evita Peron, ed è una disanima impietosa di tutti i (non pochi) vizi capitali dell'argentinità: l'incapacità di gestire le grandi risorse, sfruttate in modo esclusivamente predatorio, il non sapersi dare governi stabili, il pretendere una superiorità culturale in virtù della prossima ascendenza europea.
Il tutto con un tono inquisitorio che farebbe invidia ad un funzionario del Fondo Monetario ed un accanimento ed un livore che non sarebbe giustificato nemmeno in un truffato dai tango - bond.
Avendo appena finito di leggere Evaristo Carriego di Borges mi è venuto in mente che ad un certo punto se la prende anche con lui.
Di qui queste righe giusto per puntualizzare che forse la lista della spesa di Borges vale più dell'opera di questo Naipaul, Nobel compreso.

[André · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wie het werk van V.S. Naipaul een beetje volgt, weet dat hij zich maar al te gretig stort op het fundamentalisme in alle mogelijke vormen. De terugkeer van Eva Perón bestaat uit drie delen. Het eerste deel, Michael X en de Black Panther moorden op Trinidad is het beknopte relaas van Michael de Freitas, die zich dankzij Britse steun een imago kon aanmeten dat de Amerikaanse Black


Power beweging, die het wel ernstig meende, in een slecht daglicht stelde. Met het imago dat hij met machts en mediageilheid in Londen opbouwde wist hij bij zijn terugkeer in zijn eigen geboorteland Trinidad een commune op te richten die bestond uit mannen uit de diverse etnische groepen die het eiland rijk is. Blind fanatisme deed deze mannen geloven in en werken voor een man die alleen op egotripperij uit was en voor geen enkele misdaad terugdeinsde.
Het tweede deel, De terugkeer van Eva Perón, en het derde deel, Het einde van John Sunday, draaien rond het Perónisme in Argentinië. De twee delen zijn met een tussenperiode van twintig jaar geschreven. In het eerste gedeelte is dictator Perón samen met het gebalsemde stoffelijk overschot van zijn Evita in ballingschap in Spanje.
Naipaul bekijkt op alle mogelijke manieren het Perónisme en de invloed die Eva Perón daarop heeft gehad. Evita werd de mascotte van het gewone volk omdat zij het met de gedrevenheid van een sociaal werkster opnam voor de armen, terwijl zij zélf in weelde leefde. Terwijl Perón zijn mascotte door de massa tot heilige liet bombarderen bracht hij het land in een stroomversnelling naar een economische en morele afgrond. Subliem is de introductie door Naipaul van de schrijver Borges. Hij geeft een totaal andere visie op het Perónisme.
In het derde deel maken we de terugkeer van Perón naar Argentinië mee in het gezelschap van zijn nieuwe mascotte Isabel. De terugkeer van Argentiniës dictator aller tijden, John Sunday, zoals de Amerikanen hem noemden, heeft Argentinië helemaal verloederd. Voor wie niet gelooft in het Latijns machisme is volgens Naipaul Perón daar het prototype bij uitstek van.
De terugkeer van Eva Perón is een schitterende driedelige documentaire over machtswellust, misschien wel de meest extreme vorm van fundamentalisme.
(André Oyen)

[Marc · Rating 4 out of 5]

Populist resentment is a hell of a drug.

[Ian McHugh · Rating 4 out of 5]

I re-read this book solely to focus on the third of Naipaul's reportage essays within - and essay entitled "A New King for The Congo: Mobutu and the Nihilism of Africa". The other reportage essays within this book see Naipaul concentrate with characteristic precision and irony on Eva Peron in Argenitina, Michael X in Trinidad, and a reflection on Conrad's "Heart of Darkness". All are collected together in this volume as the common theme of 'half-made societies' are discussed and given a character assassination. On occasion Naipaul's coverage of each of the countries can come across as a little too knowing and cheap in their lampooning of the leaders covered. Nonetheless, the essays still hold weight as examinations of absolute power corrupting absolutely, and how simplification of messages can manipulate entire populations to rally to a cause.
The reason I focussed on the third essay? To 'follow up' on my reading of Tim Butcher's "Blood River" and see whether Naipaul in his journey through the Congo (or Zaire as it was then) had the same opinions.
What I found upset me. Naipaul, writing in January - March 1975, describes a country in decline under the reorganisation policies of Joseph Mobutu. "Mobutism", as Naipual describes it, shows the worst aspects of the klepocracy that Butcher witnesses the culmination of 30 years later in his travelogue. The pristine palaces, outward shows of wealth, and huge discrepancy between rich and poor is described against the back-drop of growing lawlessness and the crumbling colonial edifice of Belgian rule.
What was MOST upsetting to me about reading Naipaul's obvious disgust with Zaire in tandem with Butcher's book, was that the situation has got much MUCH worse since the mid-1970s. As Butcher describes so well, the remains of Belgian colonialism left a terrible legacy on the Congo basin but that was further eroded by the dictatorships and lack of Government that followed. Ultimately, this has led to the pillage and regression of an African giant that had (and still has) so much promise in it's people and natural mineral wealth. Naipaul gives an excellent 'snapshot' into the beginning of this misrule.
The huge problems faced by modern Congo is outlined in Butcher's book eruditely but I felt a re-reading of Naipaul's essay on the 'nilhilism of Africa' gave me a much bleaker overall view of how far the Congo has fallen in the past 35 years.

[Trebor · Rating 3 out of 5]

For anyone interested in Argentina, I would say this is a must-read, but having said that, make sure you read a lot of other material as well (I'm referring to the Evita essay, not the other two in this book, which I did not read). The essay on Eva is a bit harsh, judgmental and unfair in many ways. He mercilessly shines a spotlight on Evita Peron, which I think is helpful, as her mythology has clearly clouded the truth, but in doing so the piece becomes something of an assassination of the Argentine character. Having lived there, and having lived in general, I don't think it's ever fair to judge an entire people based on a difficult historical period or person (It's tantamount to saying Americans are naive, jingoistic and entitled---arguably true, but only half the truth. Americans are also friendly, plenty are smart, hardworking, conscientious and generous). Naipaul really hammers home his thesis of the the macho nature of Argentina and how it's all about plunder (again there is some truth in this, but Argentines are also loving, free thinking and generous, smart and for my money, incredibly fun and kind--none of which are macho-based or plunderous). I know his essay is dated, but I found Argentina as macho as anywhere, but not really more so. Which is to say all people are an enigma, and in attempting to box-in the Argentines, I was somewhat embarrassed for Naipaul. Still, it is full of important insights on some of Argentina's problems and aspects of the national character that are particularly neurotic or dysfunctional. The weirdest thing about Argentina, and about most people, is despite the messy stuff, it's still so loveable. Naipaul didn't get this and his essay would have benefitted if he had.

[Alejandro Teruel · Rating 4 out of 5]

En mi opinión para entender el chavismo y su posible impacto sobre el futuro de Venezuela no hay como leer sobre el peronismo en Argentina y el ensayo/artículo/reportaje central de este libro (El regreso de Eva Perón) es un inolvidable, punzante a la vez que deprimente, punto de arranque.

[Nicholas Whyte · Rating 5 out of 5]

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/the-return-of-eva-peron-with-the-killings-in-trinidad-by-v-s-naipaul/

It consists of four essays from the Nobel Laureate; it is notable that although the first and the longest of the pieces is about Trinidad, it is Eva Perón who is given top billing in the book’s title and cover. It’s an important book and I will describe each of the four essays briefly.

“Michael X and the Black Power Killings in Trinidad”:

I was not familiar with this grim story: Michael X, a political activist and effectively a cult leader who had ended up back in his native Trinidad after developing his activist career in London, had two of his followers brutally killed in 1971, and was eventually arrested, convicted and executed for the crimes. Naipaul goes into the rhetoric of Michael X’s particular version of Black Power in detail, which helps us understand why his followers (and others including John Lennon) took him so seriously. Naipaul doesn’t make the connection with Charles Manson, but I must say that I also saw similarities with other homicidal cult leaders before and since.

“The Return of Eva Perón”:

This is a lyrical and detailed essay about the extraordinary story of Juan and Eva Perón, and how Argentina (and Uruguay) descended into economic and political hell despite being blessed with natural resources and reasonably skilled populations. From the mid-1970s, when Naipaul was writing, it did all look pretty awful; now things look a bit better, but still fragile. He makes the point that Eva Perón would only have been in her fifties, and presumably still dominating the country’s politics, if she still been alive in 1977. He pulls in fellow writer Jorge Luis Borges for some interesting and disturbing observations.

The last two essays are both about the country then known as Zaire and now as the Democratic Republic of Congo. The first, “A New King for the Congo: Mobutu and the Nihilism of Africa”, is about the Mobutu regime, which had then been in power for over a decade and had another twenty years to go. The Mobutu regime eventually collapsed in a war that drew in all nine of the neighbouring countries at one time or another, and in the meantime other African regimes had followed it down the path of brutality and corruption. Naipaul’s analysis of the weaponisation of the cult of personality and the meagre but sufficient resources of state power is brief and forensic.

The final essay, “Conrad’s Darkness”, looks at Conrad’s work as a whole, but at Heart of Darkness in particular. Naipaul spent a lot more time thinking about Conrad than I have, but comes out in the same place: Heart of Darkness is a masterpiece and the rest of his work is remarkably good.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Naipaul covers Argentina, the Congo (Zaire at the time), and his home country of Trinidad in this series of essays published over the course of the nineteen-seventies. These places find him in fine literary form, though if I were an Argentine, especially, I wouldn’t appreciate the depiction. You don’t send Naipaul out, especially to the developing world, to paint a pretty picture. Argentina and Zaire, in Naipaul’s tellings, are lands of delusion covering over fundamental inadequacies. In Argentina, the delusion is longer-running, having gone since the early nineteenth century; in Zaire, it’s largely an invention of Mobutu, uncrowned king and dictator, and his cronies. Argentina tried to convince itself it was Europe (aided by the wholesale slaughter of its native population and denial of existence of black Argentines), Zaire pretended to be an “authentic” African state forging its own path into the future when all either were doing, according to Naipaul, were fleecing each other and degenerating. Peron, husband and wife (wives), are what Argentina deserved, and peculiarly enough the closest to a revolution it would ever get. Zaire gets more of a Conrad treatment which was less interesting than the other essays, and there’s also an essay on Conrad I skimmed because I don’t know the author well and am not wild about him in any event.

The Trinidad case is interesting because it’s about another Trinidadian who made it big in England, like Naipaul did: Michael de Freitas, aka Michael X, British/Trinidadian Black Power leader and multiple murderer, who made a brief splash in mid-60’s England by posturing as a black power leader and getting people to go along with it, though not enough to substantiate an actual movement. Michael X was a part-black, part-Portuguese Trinidadian, which translated in England as just black. Naipaul comes from the island’s Indian community. I’ve heard it suggested that this essay, larded in contempt and with a palpable sense of doom, is Naipaul’s revenge for having been a dorky Asian swot surrounded by bigger, meaner black kids who essentially inherited the country out from under the Asians when the British moved out. It’s a nasty reading but Naipaul was a nasty guy. I could also see it as contrasting the fame Michael X briefly accrued from credulous white lefties, including John Lennon, eager to believe any black man with a grudge was a true revolutionary, with Naipaul’s own process of shucking and jiving Tory-ish for his own right-wing white patrons, which of course goes unmentioned, as it always does in Naipaul (did Naipaul have any rock star fans? Ray Davies, perhaps?). Either way, it’s a squirm-inducing homecoming for the eventual Nobel laureate, as his black other half winds up on the gallows for murdering several of his followers, dismembering two with a machete. All told, quality essays, though one questions some of his more severe judgments as coming from a place of Tory swot-ishness. ****’

[Nallasivan V. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of the rarer books of Naipaul, out of print and not read by many other than serious Naipaul fans. But it is also a very interesting book for a number of reasons.

A couple of the essays in this collection read as prelude to Naipual's novels. One might even read them as companion pieces. The first essay, the Black power killings in Trinidad, is a prelude to Naipual's Guerillas. Naipaul traces the life and career of Micheal X, a prominent Black activist (and henchman) through his years in London, Guyana and Trinidad till the two murders he was convicted for. Those who haven't read Guerillas might be disappointed that the piece wasn't longer and doesn't dwell into more details like an investigative piece would. But this is not an investigative article. It is more of a cautionary tale about opportunistic men taking advantage of minority activism; turning minority suffering into profit and social/political capital.

The third essay about King Mobutu of Zaire/Congo is a prelude to Naipaul's (in my opinion) best post-colonial novel, A Bend in the River. In the novel, Naipaul without naming the African country, traces how a post colonial nation copes up with the crisis when it becomes free from an unnamed European nation. Of course, reading the third essay, you immediately identify this Nation as Congo/Zaire. It is fascinating to read the parallels between this non-fiction and the novel; to see a master at work and how we constructed the world of the novel.

The second essay is about Argentina and its own turbulent contemporary history. Unlike Zaire, the imperialists of Argentina didn't leave. They wiped out the native Indians and made it their own nation. And in this transposed European occupiers, Naipaul sees the emptiness and decadence of Colonialism. You almost wish Naipaul had done a full length non-fiction or a novel about Argentina.

His critics often think Naipaul is too critical on the natives of the post-colonial nation. But sometimes, the harshest criticism in his writing is reserved for the imperialists themselves.

[tom · Rating 2 out of 5]

the author’s sneering contempt for a variety of people, places and things.

[Tom Buchanan · Rating 4 out of 5]

What is it with writers pre-2000 and sodomy? They seem to think that it's (to quote Homer Simpson) the cause and solution to all of life's problems.

[Keen · Rating 4 out of 5]

5 stars for The Return of Eva Peron, 3 stars for The Killings in Trinidad.

[R. M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Two of these extended essays stand out, "Michael X and the Black Power Killings in Trinidad" and "Conrad's Darkness."

[Michael Wichita]

Notes on Conrad, Heart of Darkness, Borges

[readerswords · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wasn't even aware of this book until I picked it up at a used book store. It is certainly not a book that is as well known as his other ones. Naipaul is a great writer and keeps the reader engaged and make the pages turn. The problem lies with his very narrow perspective and it is paradoxical for me and many others, I am sure, that a person who is so perceptive and obviously intelligent cannot come out of his prejudices. Perhaps he is a good illustration of what Frantz Fanon called the colonization of the mind (“Imperialism leaves behind germs of rot which we must clinically detect and remove from our land but from our minds as well.”).

The first essay in the collection is about Michael X, a Trinidadian born advocate of Black Power in the 1960s and who was executed after being charged for murder. While interesting, it seems Naipaul's focus is on making public the shady side of Michael X. The perspective does not change when in the next essay he goes on to write a much broader essay on Argentina in the 1950s and 60s, with an insightful foray into its short history. The refrain that I felt in this one too is that while Argentina imported a lot from Europe, including art and architecture and virtually eliminated its indigenous population, it has merely tried to imitate 'civilisation'.

Nevertheless, I'd highly recommend reading the title essay of the book. I did not read the last two, somewhat shorter essays. There is only so much that one can take of Naipaul's prejudices.

[Salvatore · Rating 4 out of 5]

Incredible, lucid pieces of journalism that stretch from Trinidad to Argentina, the Congo to Conrad's England. I can't believe this is out of print.

Through these long form writings, Naipaul investigates theories of godliness, of the frenzied need for idols (today, I wonder if he would have written about Mother Teresa getting canonized if he hadn't retired from writing). And through these investigations, he also showcases how thin our idols are, how foolish it is to idolize, how we do need to question our favoured authorities. Even Conrad, who Naipaul clearly has used as a base and mentor, gets shafted in a beautiful homage/literary critique.

These essays also give us the settings and characters that are the starting points for the novels Guerillas and A Bend in the River. Interesting to get flashbacks to those works while reading 'non-fiction'. You can also see how Marlon James may have read the first essay on Michael X and used it as inspiration for his writings on brutality. We get the typical statements on post-colonialism: the horrors, the bloodshed, the false machismo, the destruction of the native civilization; Naipaul does make it seem new and not obvious.

Something to savour.

[Giles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Naipaul states in the intro that for the first three years of the 1970s 'no novel presented itself to me'. As a result we have this, a collection of three fabulous pieces of reportage.

In Trinidad he pulls together newspaper reports, street observations, interviews, court transcripts and even extracts from a inchoate novel to reconstruct the motivations that lead to Michael X's conviction and execution. In Argentina he interviews Bankers, busboys, British expats and even Borges to attempt to understand the cult of Peron, and in Zaire he is witness to the frenzy of a newly minted country that wants to reach deep into its past even as it strives to lead Africa into a new millennium.

Naipaul writes with a near absence of the first person pronoun, allowing all three locations to shine under his forensic gaze.

Superb.

[Elibardo Villegas · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a series of essays regarding real life events in history. The first one is about a so call Black Panther activist born in Trinidad, lived in London and went back to Trinidad to open a commune, where he ordered the killings of several member of his group by other members. He is finally convicted and condemn to death by hanging. The second is about Eva Peron and Peronism and the consequences on the Argentinian society, the third is about the rise and fall of King Joseph Désiré Mobutu, ruler of Zaire (the Congo), where he reigned over 30 years and finally an analysis of Joseph Conrad's writings. Excellent book, I love it.

[Padraic · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brilliant.