Scott, Paul (1920-1978), was a British novelist whose works were inspired by his experiences in India. Scott became famous for The Raj Quartet, four novels that chronicle the closing years of the United Kingdom‘s colonial rule in India. The novels are The Jewel in the Crown (1966), The Day of the Scorpion (1968), The Towers of Silence (1971), and A Division of the Spoils (1975).
The Raj Quartet describes the lives of a group of English men and women caught up in the political, social, religious, and racial tensions in India from World War II (1939-1945) to Indian independence in 1947. Scott tells the story from different points of view, only gradually revealing the full picture as events unfold. The Raj Quartet became a successful television serial in 1984 under the title of the first book, The Jewel in the Crown.
Scott won the 1977 Booker Prize for fiction for his novel Staying On (1977). The work focuses on two minor characters from The Raj Quartet, an aging colonel and his wife, who decide to remain in India rather than return to England. They must live on a small income and confront the harsh postcolonial attitudes of a new, self-governing India.
Paul Mark Scott was born on March 25, 1920, in London. He became an officer in the Royal Army, serving in India and Malaya (now Malaysia) from 1940 to 1946, during and after World War II. After returning to England, he worked in publishing and as a literary agent. He began devoting himself full-time to writing in 1960. His first novel, Johnnie Sahib, was published in 1952. Scott died on March 1, 1978.
