A House for Mr. Biswas

V. S. Naipaul's 1961 novel follows Mohun Biswas, an Indo-Trinidadian Hindu whose birth is judged inauspicious and who is told that misfortune will follow him. As a boy he unintentionally causes his father's drowning, and the family breaks apart, leaving him shuttled between homes. A flirtation misread as a marriage proposal ties him to Shama and to her domineering Tulsi family, on whom he resents depending. His struggle to buy a house of his own comes to stand for his need for independence. Naipaul drew on the life of his father, Seepersad Naipaul. The Modern Library ranked the novel 72nd among the 20th century's best English-language novels.

It was one of the books on Barack Obama's best of 2018 list, shared on Facebook.