V.S. Naipaul

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, bleaker novels of alienation in the wider world, and 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's breakthrough novel, A House for Mr. Biswas, was published in 1961. Naipaul won the Booker Prize in 1971 for his novel In a Free State. He won the Jerusalem Prize in 1983, and in 1989, he was awarded the Trinity Cross, Trinidad, and Tobago's highest national honor. He received a knighthood in Britain in 1990 and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2001.

V. S. Naipaul was born to Droapatie (née Capildeo) and Seepersad Naipaul on 17 August 1932 in the sugar plantation town of Chaguanas on the island of Trinidad, the larger of the two islands in the British crown colony of Trinidad and Tobago. He was the couple's second child and first son.

Naipaul's father, Seepersad, was an English-language journalist. In 1929, he had begun contributing stories to the Trinidad Guardian, and in 1932 he joined the staff as the provincial Chaguanas correspondent. In "A prologue to an autobiography" (1983), Naipaul describes how Seepersad's great reverence for writers and for the writing life spawned the dreams and aspirations of his eldest son.

In the 1880s, Naipaul's paternal grandfather had emigrated from British India to work as an indentured laborer in a sugar plantation. In the 1890s, his maternal grandfather was to do the same. During this time, many people in India, their prospects blighted by the Great Famine of 1876–78 or similar calamities, had emigrated to distant outposts of the British Empire such as Trinidad, British Guiana, Fiji, Mauritius, Natal, East Africa, Malaya, and the Dutch colony of Suriname. 

Although slavery had been abolished in these places in 1833, slave labor was still in demand, and indenture was the legal contract being drawn to meet the demand. According to the genealogy the Naipauls had reconstructed in Trinidad, they were Hindu Brahmins—embraced from the knowledge of his mother's family; his father's background had remained less certain. Their ancestors in India had been guided by ritual restrictions. 

Among these were those on food—including the prohibition against eating flesh—drink, attire, and social interaction. In Trinidad, the restrictions were to loosen gradually. By the time of Naipaul's earliest childhood memories, chicken and fish were eaten at the family's dining table, and Christmas was celebrated with a dinner. The men wore only western clothes. The women's saris were being accessorized with belts and heeled footwear, their hemlines rising in imitation of the skirt, and they were soon to disappear altogether as an item of daily wear.

Disappearing as well were the languages of India. Naipaul and his siblings were encouraged to speak only English. At school, other languages were taught, but these were usually Spanish and Latin. Naipaul's family moved to Trinidad's capital Port of Spain, at first when he was seven and then more permanently when he was nine.