In a Free State

In a Free State is a work of fiction by V. S. Naipaul published in 1971 by Andre Deutsch. It won that year's Booker Prize. The plot consists of a framing narrative and three stories – "One out of Many", "Tell Me Who to Kill", and the title story, "In a Free State". The work is symphonic, with different movements converging towards a common theme; although the theme is not spelled out, it evidently concerns the price of freedom, with analogies implicitly drawn among the three scenarios.. The story "In a Free State" was later published as a standalone novel under the same title.