Journey to Nowhere: A New World Tragedy

An unforgettable account of the mass suicide of the followers of the Rev. Jim Jones in the jungles of Guyana—an overlooked masterpiece of modern reportage.

First published in 1980, Journey to Nowhere: A New World Tragedy is Shiva Naipaul’s deeply unsettling investigation into the forces that led to the Jonestown massacre—and the broader unraveling of faith, politics, and idealism in the decades that followed the 1960s.

What begins as an inquiry into Jim Jones and the People’s Temple becomes s...