biography
| name: |
Naipaul, Sir V(idiadhar) S(urajprasad)
|
pronunciation:
[niypawl]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1932– )
|
| biography:
| Novelist, born in Chaguanas, W Trinidad. He studied at Port of Spain, and Oxford, became editor of Caribbean Voices for the BBC, and was a journalist, before publishing his first novel, The Mystic Masseur in 1957. The book which made his name was A House for Mr Biswas (1961), a satire spanning three Trinidadian generations. Thereafter the Caribbean figured less prominently in his work, which grew steadily darker and more complex, as seen in In a Free State (1971, Booker) and A Bend in the River (1979), a re-creation of what it is like to live under an African dictatorship. The Enigma of Arrival (1987) returns the scene to England. He has also written several travel books, including An Area of Darkness: an Experience of India (1964) and Among the Believers: an Islamic Journey (1981). His Reading and Writing: a Personal Account appeared in 2000, and a further novel, Half a Life, in 2001. He was knighted in 1990, and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2001. |
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