Journalism of Courage
V S Naipaul, the Trinidad-born Nobel laureate whose precise and lyrical writing in such novels as "A Bend in the River" and "A House for Mr. Biswas" and brittle, misanthropic personality made him one of the world's most admired and contentious writers, died Saturday at his London home. He was 85. (Source: AP)
He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2001 "for having united perceptive narrative and incorruptible scrutiny in works that compel us to see the presence of suppressed histories." In Pic: Writer V S Naipaul waits to receive his Nobel prize for literature at Stockholm's Konserthuset from Sweden's King Carl Gustaf, Sweden on December 10, 2001. (Source: REUTERS)
In an extraordinary career spanning half a century, Naipaul traveled as a self-described "barefoot colonial" from his rural childhood to upper class England, and was hailed as one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. In Pic: This 2001 file photo shows British author V.S. Naipaul in Salisbury, England. (Source: AP)
In its Nobel citation, the Swedish Academy called him "a literary circumnavigator, only ever really at home in himself." In Pic: Trinidad born writer V.S. Naipaul (L) receives his Nobel prize for literature at Stockholm's Konserthuset from Sweden's King Carl Gustaf on December 10, 2001. (Source: Reuters)
Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul — Vidia to those who knew him — was born on Aug. 17, 1932, in Trinidad, a descendant of impoverished Indians shipped to the West Indies as bonded labourers.(Source: AP)
His father was an aspiring, self-taught novelist whose ambitions were killed by lack of opportunity; the son was determined to leave his homeland as soon as he could. In later years, he would repeatedly reject his birthplace as little more than a plantation. In Pic: V S Naipaul (2nd L) looks over his Nobel prize for literature with Medicine winner Sir Paul Nurse (L) and Economics winners George Akerlof and A. Michael Spence (R) at Stockholm's Konserthuset, after receiving it from Sweden's King Carl Gustaf on December 10, 2001. (Source: REUTERS)
In the years that followed, Naipaul was to travel for extensive periods to pen journalistic essays and travel books. He flew three times to India, his ancestral home, to write about its culture and politics. (Source: AP)
