V. S. Naipaul

Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul (born August 17, 1932), better known as V. S. Naipaul, is a British novelist of Hindu heritage and East Indian ethnicity from Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean, which was then a British colony. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2001 and was also knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. He is married to Lady Nadira.

Both his fiction and his travel writing have been criticised for their unsympathetic portrayal of the third world. Most notably, Edward Said has argued that he "allowed himself quite consciously to be turned into a witness for the Western prosecution", promoting "colonial mythologies about wogs and darkies" (p. 53). However, his works are considered plausible, even by many in the third world - and have become required reading in some schools within the third world.

Naipaul's prominent support for Hindutva has also been controversial. He has been quoted describing the destruction of the Babri Mosque as a "creative passion", and the invasion of Babur in the 16th century as a "mortal wound". He views Vijayanagar, which fell in 1565, as the last bastion of native Hindu civilisation. William Dalrymple has argued that this is too simplistic, and that both Vijayanagar and the Mughal empire were hybrid civilisations, combining elements of both cultures.

His younger brother Shiva Naipaul was also an accomplished writer.

Awards

• Booker Prize - 1971
• Nobel Prize for Literature - 2001

Bibliography

Fiction

• The Mystic Masseur - (1957)
• The Suffrage of Elvira - (1958)
• Miguel Street - (1959)
• A House for Mr Biswas - (1961)
• Mr. Stone and the Knight's Companion - (1963)
• A Flag on the Island - (1967)
• The Mimic Men - (1967)
• The Loss of Eldorado - (1969)
• In a Free State - (1971)
• Guerillas - (1975)
• A Bend in the River - (1979)
• Finding the Centre - (1984)
• The Enigma of Arrival - (1987)
• A Way in the World - (1994)
• Half a Life - (2001)
• Magic Seeds - (2004)

Non-fiction

• The Middle Passage: Impressions of Five Societies - British, French and Dutch in the West Indies and South America (1962)
• An Area of Darkness- (1964)
• The Overcrowded Barracoon and Other Articles (1972)
• India: A Wounded Civilization (1977)
• A Congo Diary (1980)
• The Return of Eva Perón (1980)
• Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey (1981)
• Finding the Centre (1984)
• A Turn in the South (1989)
• India: A Million Mutinies Now (1990)
• Homeless by Choice (1992, with R. Jhabvala and S. Rushdie)
• Bombay (1994, with Raghubir Singh)
• Beyond Belief: Islamic Excursions among the Converted Peoples (1998)
• Between Father and Son: Family Letters (1999, edited by Gillon Aitken)

Further reading

• Said, Edward (1986). Intellectuals in the Post-Colonial World. Salmagundi 70-71. 44-64.