In his Nobel Lecture from 7 December 2001, entitled “Two Worlds”, Naipaul described
The Mimic Men(1967) as being:
[A]bout colonial shame and fantasy, a book, in fact, about how the powerless lie about themselves, since it is their only resource. [...] [I]t was not about mimics. It was about colonial men mimicking the conditions of manhood, men who had grown to distrust everything about themselves.
[A]bout colonial shame and fantasy, a book, in fact, about how the powerless lie about themselves, since it is their only resource. [...] [I]t was not about mimics. It was about colonial men mimicking the conditions of manhood, men who had grown to distrust everything about themselves.
“Mimicry” in Naipaul’s novel is thus the appropriation by “colonial men” – a general term for
2806 words
Citation: Whittle, Matthew. "The Mimic Men". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 25 November 2013 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=170, accessed 19 April 2024.]
