Not long after finishing A Flag on the Island, Naipaul began work on the novel The Mimic Men, though for almost a year he did not make significant progress.

[7] It is intermittently dense, even obscure,[5] but it also has beautiful passages, especially in the descriptions of the fictional tropical island of Isabella.

[8] The plot, to the extent that there is one, is centred on Ralph Singh, an Indo-Caribbean politician from Isabella who narrates in the first person.

In many of these, during crucial moments, whether during his childhood, his married life, or his political career, he appears to abandon engagement and enterprise.

In particular, Caribbean politicians such as Michael Manley and Eric Williams weighed in, the latter writing, "V. S. Naipaul's description of West Indians as 'mimic men' is harsh but true ..."[9]