Naipaul << ny PAWL >>, V. S. (1932-2018), was a novelist, travel writer, and social commentator from Trinidad. He wrote about many cultures and societies throughout the world. Naipaul’s recurrent theme was the clash of older traditions and practices with the raw aggressiveness of modern political life. Naipaul won the 1971 Booker Prize for In a Free State (1971). He was awarded the 2001 Nobel Prize in literature for his body of work.
Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul was born on Aug. 17, 1932, in Chaguanas, on the island of Trinidad, then part of the British colony of Trinidad and Tobago. His parents were descendants of immigrants from India. Naipaul was educated in the Caribbean region and at Oxford University in England. After completing his studies, he settled in England. His early fiction tended toward the lightly comic.
Naipaul first gained recognition with his satirical novel A House for Mr. Biswas (1961). The novels Guerrillas (1975); A Bend in the River (1979); A Way in the World (1994); and Half a Life (2001) and its sequel, Magic Seeds (2004) have political themes. Naipaul’s many travel books include The Middle Passage (1962), about the Caribbean; An Area of Darkness (1965), about India; Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey (1981), about the Middle East; A Turn in the South (1989), about the Southern United States; and The Masque of Africa (2010), about Africa. He also wrote short stories that were collected in A Flag on the Island (1967). His nonfiction was published in The Writer and the World (2002); Literary Occasions (2004); and A Writer’s People: Ways of Looking and Feeling (2008).
Naipaul was knighted in 1990 and formally became Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul. He died on Aug. 11, 2018.
