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'V.S. Naipaul's literary approach to reporting is radical and inspiring'

Brendan McGetrick, curator of Global Grad Show, believes in the power of harmony

What book(s) are you reading now?
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders. It's excellent.

A book that changed your life?
An Area of Darkness by V.S. Naipaul. It's a travelogue of Naipaul's trip through India in the early 60s, and my first exposure to his nonfiction travel writing. I studied journalism and was trained to write in a cold, factual way, so Naipaul's approach to reporting was radical to me. I loved how he brought the reader along on his own journey from ignorance to understanding. He included his mistakes, false starts, misunderstandings, and petty judgements. The book is a byproduct of his own quest to better understand his ancestral home. At the time I was living in China, doing a lot of writing for western magazines, and this book gave me the courage to make my articles more immediate, honest and personal.

Name a book you think is underrated.
The 50th Law by 50 Cent. It also changed my life, but that's a longer story.
Your favourite literary character?
Ivan Ilyich from The Death of Ivan Ilyich because I love Leo Tolstoy and because Ilyich is a reminder of the dangers of being imprisoned by others' expectations.

A book quote that you love?
It's from Blaise Pascal's Pensées: "It is in the nature of tyranny for one realm of life to desire power outside its own sphere, and over the whole world even... Nothing can win this, not even money, for it is powerless in the kingdom of the wise." For me, this is a timeless reminder of the importance of finding harmony among different forms of intelligence and belief. Among nations and among elements within a single nation, we suffer the discord of one sphere assuming it can dominate others. As Pascal says, this is foolish. But as dangerous as it can be when opposing spheres meet, we shouldn't assume the worst of it. These moments of overlap can be enormously fertile - and, in some ways, my career has been spent trying to trigger and harmonise these moments.