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.
A House for Mr Biswas is a 1961 novel by V. S. Naipaul, significant as Naipaul's first work to achieve acclaim worldwide. It is the story of Mohun Biswas, a Hindu Indo-Trinidadian who continually strives for success and mostly fails, who marries into the influential Tulsi family only to find himself dominated by it, and who finally sets the goal of owning his own house. It relies on some biographical elements from the experience of the author's father, and views a colonial world sharply with postcolonial perspectives.
First edition cover
