” The world is always in movement.” -VS Naipaul
Nobel Prize-winning British author Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul passed away at the age of 85, his family announced on Saturday.
‘He died surrounded by those he loved having lived a life which was full of wonderful creativity and endeavour,’ his wife Lady Naipaul said in a statement.
Born on Aug 17, 1932, the Trinidad-born Nobel laureate has enjoyed an extraordinary career spanning half a century.
VS Naipaul wrote more than 30 books such as A Bend in the River and A House for Mr. Biswas, which took over three years to write.
In 1950, Naipaul was awarded government scholarships to study in England, and he left his family to begin his studies in English literature at University College, Oxford.
Despite his Oxford education, he suffered a period of poverty and unemployment. Naipaul eventually landed a radio job working for BBC World Service.
His first novel The Mystic Masseur was published in 1957, the book was about the lives of powerless people in a Trinidad ghetto.
He was one of the first winners of the Booker Prize, now Britain’s leading literary award, in 1971 for ‘In A Free State.’
His first wife, Patricia Hale, whom he married in 1955 without telling his family, died in 1996 and he went on to marry Pakistani journalist, Nadira.
He won the Nobel Literature Prize in 2001, ‘for having united perceptive narrative and incorruptible scrutiny in works that compel us to see the presence of suppressed histories.’