V.S. NAIPAUL was born in Trinidad in 1932. He came to England on a
scholarship in 1950. He spent four years at University College,
Oxford, and began to write, in London, in 1954. He pursued no other
profession.
His novels include A House for Mr Biswas, The Mimic
Men, Guerrillas, A Bend in the River, and The Enigma
of Arrival. In 1971 he was awarded the Booker Prize for In a
Free State. His works of nonfiction, equally acclaimed,
include Among the Believers, Beyond Belief, The
Masque of Africa, and a trio of books about India: An Area of
Darkness, India: A Wounded Civilization and India: A
Million Mutinies Now.
In 1990, V.S. Naipaul received a knighthood for services to
literature; in 1993, he was the first recipient of the David Cohen
British Literature Prize. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature
in 2001. He died in 2018.
"His writing is clean and beautiful, and he has a great eye for
nuance.... No American writer could achieve [his] kind of
evenhandedness, and it gives Naipaul's perceptions an almost
built-in originality." —Atlantic Monthly
“Naipaul’s chapters honor the diversity that marks the South....
Conservatives and liberals, whites and blacks, men and women speak
for themselves, and reveal the dark side of the story in their own
ways … fascinating and revealing.” —The New Republic
“A Tolstoyan spirit.... The so-called Third World has produced no
more brilliant literary artist.” —John Updike
“Naipaul is a master of English prose.” —J. M. Coetzee, The New
York Review of Books
“V. S. Naipaul has a substantial claim as a comic writer.... This
humor, conducted throughout with the utmost stylistic quietude, is
completely original.” —Kingsley Amis, The Spectator
“Mr. Naipaul travels with the artist’s eye and ear and his
observations are sharply discerning.” —Evelyn Waugh
“His comprehension is astute and penetrating.... The book he has
written brings new understanding [of] the subject.” —The New York
Times Book Review
Naipaul toured the American South with an open mind and heart. He portrays the South as a strange mixture of self-reliance and community, desperation and playfulness; Southerners, whites especially, are a people still coming to terms with their past. The Trinidad-born novelist ( A House for Mr. Biswas ) and social critic ( Among the Believers ) talked at length with Southern blacks and whitespoliticians, tobacco farmers, pastors, country music singers, Tuskegee Institute students, waitresses. He chatted with Eudora Welty about the frontiersman's character, born of cunning and enterprise. He visited Elvis Presley's birthplace in Tupelo, Miss. and observed the Elvis cult's religious overtones. Religion, in fact, hovered ``like something in the air'' wherever he went, a reservoir of instant emotion. Part travelogue, part oral history, in this ruminative ramble Naipaul depicts the South as only an ``outsider'' could, with wonderment and multiple cross-cultural references. First serial to the New Yorker. (Feb.)
"His writing is clean and beautiful, and he has a great eye for
nuance.... No American writer could achieve [his] kind of
evenhandedness, and it gives Naipaul's perceptions an almost
built-in originality." -Atlantic Monthly
"Naipaul's chapters honor the diversity that marks the South....
Conservatives and liberals, whites and blacks, men and women speak
for themselves, and reveal the dark side of the story in their own
ways ... fascinating and revealing." -The New Republic
"A Tolstoyan spirit.... The so-called Third World has produced no
more brilliant literary artist." -John Updike
"Naipaul is a master of English prose." -J. M. Coetzee, The New
York Review of Books
"V. S. Naipaul has a substantial claim as a comic writer.... This
humor, conducted throughout with the utmost stylistic quietude, is
completely original." -Kingsley Amis, The Spectator
"Mr. Naipaul travels with the artist's eye and ear and his
observations are sharply discerning." -Evelyn Waugh
"His comprehension is astute and penetrating.... The book he has
written brings new understanding [of] the subject." -The New
York Times Book Review
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