Can you recommend any of Mr. Naipul’s works? Just as a background I mainly read history and Victorian Lit.
Well, really, all of it.
Among the Believers and Beyond Belief are a must.
Others I would recommend are:
A Way in the World
Guerrillas (concerning conflicts and guerilla warfare in Africa)
A Bend in the River (concerning guerilla warfare in Africa)
The Middle Passage: Impressions of Five Societies – British, French and Dutch in the West Indies and South America (travelogue, histories of these places)
He wrote many books and short stories about Trinidad (an island in the Caribbean where he was born and grew up). Some are autobiographical or based or fictional but based on real historical events and real people he has knew
The most notable of Naipaul's travel books are his two on Islam, Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey (1981) and Beyond Belief: Islamic Excursions among the Converted Peoples (1998), and his trilogy about India, An Area of Darkness (1964), India: A Wounded Civilization (1977), and India: A Million Mutinies Now (1990).
As noted in the Nobel prize award, Naipaul can be seen as Joseph Conrad's heir in trying to understand the clash between civilizations and cultures. Of Indian extraction and raised in Trinidad, Naipaul has been criticized for tacitly favoring the West in its collisions with the rest of the world and for his clear-eyed view of the failings of other cultures.