... those singular novels that seem to constitute their on complete universes, in this case a miniature India on the periphery of the British Empire, the scene of his fathers circumscribed existence. In alloing peripheral figures their place in the momentousness of great literature, Naipaul reverses normal perspectives and denies readers at the centre their protective detachment. This principle as made to serve in a series of novels in hich, despite the increasingly documentary tone, the characters did not therefore become less colourful. Fictional narratives, autobiography and documentaries have merged in Naipauls riting ithout it alays being possible to say hich element dominates.In his masterpiece The Enigma of Arrival Naipaul visits the reality of England like an anthropologist studying some hitherto unexplored native tribe deep in the jungle. ith apparently short-sighted and random observations he creates an unrelenting image of the placid collapse of the old colonial ruling culture and the demise of European neighbourhoods. Naipaul has dran attention to the novels lack of universality as a form, that it presupposes an inviolate human orld of the kind that has been shattered for conquered peoples. He began to experience the inadequacy of fiction hile he as orking on The Loss of El Dorado, in hich after extensive study of the archives he described the appalling colonial history of Trinidad. He found that he had to cling to the authenticity of the details and the voices and abstain from mere fictionalisation hile at the same time continuing to render his material in the form of literature. His travel books allo itnesses to testify at every turn, not least in his poerful description of the eastern regions of the Islamic orld, Beyond Belief. The authors empathy finds expression in the acuity of his ear. Naipaul is a modern philosophe, carrying on the tradition that started originally ith Lettres persanes and Candide. In a vigilant style, hich has been deservedly admired, he transforms rage into precision and allos events to speak ith their on inherent irony. INCLUDEPICTURE http.nobel.seliteraturelaureates2001naipaul-lectur
e.jpg t MERGEFORMATINET The British riter, born in Trinidad, Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul as born in 1932 in Chaguanas, close to the Port of Spain on Trinidad, in a family descended from immigrants from the north of India. His grandfather orked in a sugar cane plantation and his father as a journalist and riter. At the age of 18 Naipaul travelled to England here, after studying at University College at Oxford, he as aarded the degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1953. From then on he continued to live in England since the 70s in iltshire, close to Stonehenge but he has also spent a great deal of time travelling in Asia, Africa and America. Apart from a fe years in the middle of the 1950s, hen he as employed by the BBC as a free-lance journalist, he has devoted himself entirely to his riting. Naipauls orks consist mainly of novels and short stories, but also include some that are documentary. He is to a very high degree a cosmopolitan riter, a fact that he himself considers to stem from his lack of roots he is unhappy about the cultural and spiritual poverty of Trinidad, he feels alienated from India, and in England he is incapable of relating to and identifying ith the traditional values of hat as once a colonial poer.The events in his earliest books take place in the est Indies. A fe years after the publication of his first ork, The Mystic Masseur 1957, came hat is considered by many to be one of his most outstanding novels, A House for Mr. Bisas 1961, in hich the protagonist is modelled on the authors father.After the enormous success of A House for Mr. Bisas, Naipaul extended the geographical and social perspective of his riting to describe ith increasing pessimism the deleterious impact of colonialism and emerging nationalism on the third orld, in for instance Guerrillas 1975 and A Bend in the River 1979, the latter a portrayal of Africa that has been compared to Conrads Heart of Darkness. In his travel books and his documentary orks he presents his impressions of the country of his ancestors, India, as in India A Million Mutinies No 1990, and also critical assessments of Muslim fundamentalism in non-Arab countries such as Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia and Pakistan in Among the Believers 1981 and Beyond Belief 1998.The novels The Enigma of Arrival 1987 and A ay in the orld 1994 are to a great extent autobiographical. In The Enigma of Arrival he describes ho a landed estate in southern England and its proprietor, ith a colonial background and afflicted by a degenerative disease, gradually decline before finally perishing. A ay in the orld, hich is a cross beteen fiction, memoirs and history, consists of nine independent but thematically linked narratives in hich Caribbean and Indian traditions are blended ith the culture encountered by the author hen he moved to England at the age of 18.V.S. Naipaul has been aarded a number of literary prizes, among them the Booker Prize in 1971 and the T.S. Eliot Aard for Creative riting in 1986. He is an honorary doctor of St. Andres College and Columbia University and of the Universities of Cambridge, London and Oxford. In 1990 he as knighted by Queen Elizabeth. A selection of orks by V.S. NaipaulThe Mystic Masseur. London Deutsch, 1957. Miguel Street. London Deutsch, 1959.A House for Mr. Bisas. London Deutsch, 1961. The Middle Passage Impressions of Five Societies British, French and Dutch in the est Indies and South America. London Deutsch, 1962. Mr. Stone and the Knights Companion. London Deutsch, 1963.A Flag on the Island. London Deutsch, 1967.The Loss of El Dorado A History. London Deutsch, 1969. In a Free State. London Deutsch, 1971.The Overcroded Barracoon and Other Articles. London Deutsch, 1972. Guerrillas. London Deutsch, 1975. India A ounded Civilization. London Deutsch, 1977. A Bend in the River. London Deutsch, 1979. A Congo Diary. Los Angeles, CA Sylvester Orphanos, 1980. Among the Believers An Islamic Journey. London Deutsch, 1981.The Enigma of Arrival. London Viking, 1987. India A Million Mutinies No. London Heinemann, 1990. A ay in the orld. London Heinemann, 1994. Beyond Belief Islamic Excursions among the Converted Peoples. London Little, Bron, 1998.Reading and riting A Personal Account. Ne York Ne York Revie of Books, 2000. Half a life. London Picador, 2001.LiteratureTheroux, Paul, V.S. Naipaul an introduction to his ork. London Deutsch, 1972.Hamner, Robert, V.S. Naipaul. Ne York Tayne, 1973.Critical perspectives on V.S. Naipaul. Ed. Robert D. Hamner. London Heinemann, 1979.Nightingale, Peggy, Journey through darkness the riting of V.S. Naipaul. St. Lucia Univ. of Queensland Press, 1987.Hughes, Peter, V.S. Naipaul. London Routledge, 1988.Jarvis, Kelvin, V.S. Naipaul a selective bibliography ith annotations, 19571987. Metuchen, N. J. Scarecro, 1989.Kelly, Richard, V.S. Naipaul. Ne York Cont...
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