SOURCE: Naipaul, V. S., Tarun Tejpal, and Jonathan Rosen. “V. S. Naipaul: The Art of Fiction CLIV.” Paris Review 40, no. 148 (fall 1998): 38-66.

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 August 1932 in Chaguanas, Trinidad, where his ancestors had emigrated from India—his maternal grandfather, at the turn of the century, had traveled from that country as an indentured servant.

Naipaul, in his essay “Prologue to an Autobiography” from Finding the Center, has written: “Half a writer's work … is the discovery of his subject. And a problem for me was that my life had been varied, full of upheavals and moves: from grandmother's Hindu house in the country, still close to the rituals and social ways of village India; to Port of Spain, the negro...