V. S. Naipaul Summary

V. S. Naipaul (born 1932) was one of the foremost spokespersons in English prose of the post-colonial Third World.Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul was born August 17, 1932, in Trinidad, where his grandfa... Read more

In a 1994 interview with John F. Baker, V. S. Naipaul said: “I'd like to travel some more before the body shuts down completely. But I can't travel without writing. I love to see things come out ... Read more

In the following review, Eder argues that by "refusing to conceal or temper his own crabby vision," Naipaul achieves a "unique authenticity" in his A Way in the World. The ... Read more

In the following essay, Pritchard argues that Naipaul's "decline as a novelist" can be attributed to his "banishment" of irony and humor in his later works. V. S. Na... Read more

In the following essay, Rohlehr discusses Naipaul's ironic approach toward and "sympathetic rejection" of Trinidadian culture. About Naipaul's first three novels George Lam... Read more

In the following interview, Atlas offers insight into Naipaul's methods and motivations "Whatever the labor of any piece of writing, whatever its creative challenges and satisfactions, t... Read more

Critical Essay by John Ayre [Naipaul] has become a kind of inspired commando parachuting into the underdeveloped world and writing about the color and people and distress that United Nations statistic... Read more

Critical Essay by Charles R. Larson In V. S. Naipaul's recent novels, there has been an increasing sense of displacement, abandonment, and denial of hope, although to a certain extent these the... Read more

Critical Essay by Patrick Parrinder In Naipaul's novels we trace the fortunes of the imaginative dreamer, the 'trickster' or fantasist of bookish disposition whose dreams eventual... Read more

Critical Essay by Jack Beatty As enlightened people we are supposed to believe that all cultures are equidistant from eternity, that none is perfect, that each should be judged by standards that are i... Read more

Critical Essay by Edward W. Said [In 1965, Naipaul] writes that "to be a colonial is to be a little ridiculous and unlikely" and this is directly reflected in the clearly etched but on t... Read more

In the following essay, Greenberg considers the impact of Naipaul's racial attitudes and pessimism on his novel The Mimic Men. V. S. Naipaul's fiction and nonfiction since the 1960s have... Read more

In the following review, Hensher assesses Naipaul's literary achievements and deems him “a supremely deserving Nobel laureate.” The best aspect of V. S. Naipaul's Nobel Pri... Read more

In the following review, Gilmour considers Beyond Belief to be a sequel to Among the Believers, contending that Naipaul's approach in Beyond Belief is “patient, fastidious and skeptical,... Read more

In the following essay, Leavis praises A Way in the World, judging the work as a culmination of genres and interests, and as a combination of travel narrative, biography, ideas about oppression and th... Read more

In the following essay, Bawer offers an overview of Naipaul's literary oeuvre and judges the author an ardent and eloquent defender of civilization. Last December, on the day after being presen... Read more

In the following interview, Naipaul discusses the central themes of A Way in the World, his background and ambitions, and his development as a writer. Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul was born on 17 ... Read more

In the following review, Mishra explores the major thematic concerns of the family letters collected in Between Father and Son and provides a biographical account of Naipaul's early life, parti... Read more

In the following review, Epstein explores Naipaul's relationship with his father as found in the letters collected in Between Father and Son. Despite the implications of the marital misadventur... Read more

In the following excerpt from her full-length study of Naipaul's work, Nightingale shows how themes of postcolonial futility and wasted lives in Miguel Street become more explicit and pessimist... Read more

In the following excerpts from his full-length treatment of Naipaul's work, Kelly penetrates the humor of the short stories in Miguel Street and A Flag on the Island to discover the author�... Read more

In the following excerpt, Mustafa analyzes Naipaul's mingling of short fiction and nonfiction in In a Free State and concludes that with the work Naipaul reaches “an existentialist disas... Read more

In the following excerpt from his full-length book on Naipaul's fiction, Rao analyzes the plots and themes of several of the short stories in A Flag on the Island and argues that the stories ar... Read more