The Capildeo family is an Indo-Trinidadian and Tobagonian family of Hindu pundits, politicians, and writers. The most notable members are 2001 Nobel laureate V. S. Naipaul and mathematician and politician Rudranath Capildeo.
The ancestral home of the Capildeo family is known as Anand Bhavan and is in Chaguanas, Caroni County, Trinidad and Tobago.
No-one today knows how the name Kapil transformed into Capildeo. It is possible that Kapil added dev, meaning God, from his village's name of Mahadeva Dubey to his name. Transliteration from Hindi to English was not well developed in the 19th century and words were spelt differently then from the way they are now. Thus, Kapil was changed to Capil and dev to deo, giving Kapil's descendants the surname of Capildeo.
Capildeo family
Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul was a Trinidadian-born British writer of works of fiction and nonfiction in English. He is known for his comic early novels set in Trinidad, his bleaker novels of alienation in the wider world, and his vigilant chronicles of life and travels. He wrote in prose that was widely admired, but his views sometimes aroused controversy. He published more than thirty books over fifty years.
Naipaul in 2016
Naipaul attended the government-run Queen's Royal College (QRC), a high school, Port of Spain from 1942 to 1950. Shown here are some older students at QRC talking to a visitor in 1955.
A 1790 aquatint of High Street, Oxford, showing University College in the left foreground. A century and a half later, V. S. Naipaul would spend four years at the college.
Pauline Henriques and Samuel Selvon reading a story on BBC's Caribbean Voices. In December 1954, Naipaul joined the staff.
