V. S. Naipaul

Born August 17, 1932 · Died August 11, 2018

Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul (17 August 1932 – 11 August 2018) 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.

Quotes

“Everybody is interesting for an hour, but few people can last more than two.”
As quoted in "Wanderer of Endless Curiosity" by R. Z. Sheppard in Time magazine
“One always writes comedy at the moment of deepest hysteria.”
As quoted in "V.S. Naipaul in Search of Himself: A Conversation" with Mel Gussow
“Men need history; it helps them to have an idea of who they are. But history, like sanctity, can reside in the heart; it is enough that there is something there.”
The Enigma of Arrival
“India is for me a difficult country. It isn’t my home and cannot be my home; and yet I cannot reject it or be indifferent to it; I cannot travel only for the sights. I am at once too close and too far.”
India: A Wounded Civilization
“The only lies for which we are truly punished are those we tell ourselves.”
In a Free State

Quotes from Wikiquote (CC BY-SA 4.0), chosen with AI.

Books by V. S. Naipaul in order

Books by V. S. Naipaul in the order they were published, from The Mystic Masseur (1957) to Bharat (2006).

If you like V. S. Naipaul

Authors readers of V. S. Naipaul often like, from our AI-written notes

Samuel SelvonAnother Trinidadian writer in English who wrote about Indo-Caribbean and Afro-Caribbean life, and about migration to London in The Lonely Londoners (1956).
George LammingA Barbadian novelist of the same postwar generation, whose books on colonial identity and independence, such as In the Castle of My Skin (1953), share Naipaul's concerns.
Joseph ConradHis novels of empire and colonial corruption, such as Heart of Darkness and Nostromo, are often read alongside Naipaul's books on Africa and the Caribbean.
Chinua AchebeA Nigerian novelist whose Things Fall Apart (1958) examines colonial disruption from the inside, in contrast to Naipaul's more detached outside view.
Paul TherouxA travel writer and novelist who followed Naipaul's interest in observing societies at close range and in travel as a subject for fiction and nonfiction.
Kazuo IshiguroAnother Nobel laureate whose novels focus on memory, displacement and the unreliable narrator's view of their own life.