Nobel literature laureate VS Naipaul dies
VS NAIPAUL, the Nobel Prize-winning author, has died at the age of 85, his family confirmed last night.
The author, considered one of the most talented novelists of his generation, died at his home in London.
His works include A House for Mr Biswas, A Bend in the River and The Enigma of Arrival, and he received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2001.
Lady Naipaul confirmed that her husband died peacefully. She said: “He was a giant in all that he achieved and he died surrounded by those he loved having lived a life which was full of wonderful creativity and endeavour.”
Naipaul was born in Trinidad but moved to Britain to study at Oxford, where he suffered a breakdown.
He went on to become a world-class novelist and was knighted by the Queen in 1990. With more than 30 books published over a nearly 50-year career, he was described as being the “foremost literary interpreter of the Third World for a British and American readership”. He also won the Booker Prize and in 1993 was awarded the David Cohen British literature prize for a lifetime’s achievement, beating figures such as William Golding and Iris Murdoch.
In later life, his personal life came under scrutiny after it emerged that he kept a mistress for 24 years before he left his first wife, and had a reputation for arrogance and rudeness that cost him many friends in the literary world. Labelled a singular writer by critics, he also faced accusations of racism and homophobia.