''A Hot Country'' (published as ''Love and Death in a Hot Country'' in the US) was the last novel to be written by

Shiva Naipaul Shiva Naipaul (; 25 February 1945 – 13 August 1985), born Shivadhar Srinivasa Naipaul in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, was an Indo-Trinidadian and Tobagonian, Indo-Trinidadian and British novelist and journalist. Life and work Shiva Na ...

and also his shortest in length. It was published in 1983. Before its publication, Naipaul had not written a novel in ten years. ''A Hot Country'' departs from the comic style of his earlier novels ''Fireflies'' and '' The Chip-Chip Gatherers''. It is set during an election in the fictional

Caribbean The Caribbean ( , ; ; ; ) is a region in the middle of the Americas centered around the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, mostly overlapping with the West Indies. Bordered by North America to the north, Central America ...

country of Cuyama, thought to be based on

Guyana Guyana, officially the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, is a country on the northern coast of South America, part of the historic British West Indies. entry "Guyana" Georgetown, Guyana, Georgetown is the capital of Guyana and is also the co ...

where Naipaul had researched his book Black & White about the

Jonestown Massacre The Peoples Temple Agricultural Project, better known by its informal name "Jonestown", was a remote settlement in Guyana established by the Peoples Temple, an American religious movement under the leadership of Jim Jones. Jonestown became in ...

, which profoundly affected him.

References

1983 novels Novels set in the Caribbean {{1980s-novel-stub