Set in Shiva Naipaul’s birthplace, Fireflies is a massive chronicle, in two parts, of the fortunes of The Khojas, Trinidad's most venerated Hindu family.
A rigidly orthodox family, presiding over acres of ill-kept sugarcane and hoards of jewellery enthusiastically guarded by old Mrs Khoja, they seem to have triumphed more by default than by anything else. Only ‘Baby’ Khoja, who is parcelled off into an arranged marriage with a blustering bus driver, proves an exception to this rule. Her heroic story - of resourcefulness, strength and survival - is the gleaming thread in Shiva Naipaul’s ferociously comic and profoundly sad first novel.
Shiva Naipaul’s 1970 novel was longlisted for the Lost Man Booker Prize, in 2010.
Shiva Naipaul
About the Author
The younger brother of novelist V. S. Naipaul, he died from a heart attack at the age of 40, sitting at his writing desk.