July 1977 - August 1978
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul, one of the most highly acclaimed writers in the English language today, was born in Trinidad to Indian parents on August 17, 1932. His grandfather was a Hindu from northern India who migrated to the Caribbean as an indentured laborer; his father was a journalist who inspired the young Naipaul in his future vocation. "At really quite an early age I thought of myself as a writer... because of this overwhelming idea of its nobility as a calling," he remembers. In 1938 the family settled in Port of Spain, where Naipaul attended the island's leading primary and secondary schools. At the age of eighteen he immigrated to England with a scholarship to University College, Oxford. After earning a degree in English literature in 1953 he moved to London to edit _Caribbean Voices__, a BBC radio program broadcast to the West Indies. Naipaul's writing career began auspiciously with the publication of _The Mystic Masseur__ in 1957. A picaresque novel about an engaging con man who becomes a respected Trinidadian statesman, the book was awarded the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize. _The Suffrage of Elvira__ (1958) and _Miguel Street__ (1959), a collection of short stories that won the Somerset Maugham Award, also exposed the follies of West Indian society. The appearance of _A House for Mr. Biswas__ (1961), a tragicomic novel reminiscent of Dickens, marked a turning point in Naipaul's work. Widely regarded as his masterpiece, the book is a fictionalized account of his father's life that doubles as an allegory of the colonial predicament. _Mr. Stone and the Knights Companion__ (1963), his first novel to be set in England, earned him the Hawthornden Prize. Naipaul began his series of studies of the emerging nations of the postcolonial world with _The Middle Passage__ (1962). Cast in the form of a travelogue, the book records impressions of British, French, and Dutch societies in the West Indies and South America. Following a year-long journey to India, he wrote _An Area of Darkness__ (1964), a controversial portrayal of his ancestral homeland. Afterward Naipaul alternated between fiction and nonfiction in his exploration of cultural identity. In 1967 he brought out _The Mimic Men__, a powerful novel about the consequences of British imperialism that earned him the W. H. Smith Award, and _A Flag on the Island__, a second collection of short stories. Next he searched out the origins of modern Trinidad in a highly personal history, _The Loss of El Dorado__ (1969). _In a Free State__, an innovative work about British expatriates in a strife-torn African nation, won England's prestigious Booker Prize in 1971. _The Overcrowded Barracoon and Other Articles__, a compilation of personal and political journalism, came out the following year. The publication of _Guerrillas__ (1975), a haunting novel of murder and revolution on a Caribbean island recently liberated from colonial rule, firmly established Naipaul's reputation in the United States. After revisiting India during the state of emergency in 1975, he offered another unsettling look at the subcontinent in _India: A Wounded Civilization__ (1977). In 1979 he published _A Bend in the River__, a profound novel that delves still deeper into his recurring theme of displacement in a neocolonial world. During the 1980s Naipaul focused mainly on nonfiction. He turned out a compendium of essays, _The Return of Eva Peron, with the Killings in Trinidad__ (1980); _Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey__ (1981), a searching examination of the Islamic revival in Iran, Pakistan, Malaysia, and Indonesia; and _Finding the Center Two Narratives__ (1984), an autobiographical essay and an essay on the Ivory Coast. _The Enigma of Arrival__ (1987), his only novel of the decade, is perhaps his most autobiographical. In addition he wrote _A Turn in the South__ (1989), a journal of his travels through the American South. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1990; the same year he published _India: A Million Mutinies Now__, a more optimistic vision of the modern-day nation. In 1993 he won the David Cohen British Literature Prize. Naipaul's most recent novel, _A Way in the World__ (1994), is an inventive mixture of autobiography and meditation, a monumental tale of identity recovered. "For sheer abundance of talent there can hardly be a writer alive who surpasses V. S. Naipaul," hailed _The New York Times Book Review__. "[He is] the world's writer, a master of language and perception."