Naipaul, V(idiadhar) S(urajprasad) (1932– )

Trinidadian novelist and travel writer living in Britain. His novels, usually set in former colonies, explore the relationship between indigenous culture and Western influence. These include A House for Mr Biswas (1961), The Mimic Men (1967), In a Free State (1971; for which he won the Booker Prize), A Bend in the River (1979), Finding the Centre (1984), A Way in the World (1994), and Half a Life (2001). He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2001.

He also published several works of non-fiction, including three studies of India. In 1999 he published Letters Between a Father and Son – letters between him and his family in India while he was in Oxford. He was knighted in 2001. His brother Srinivasa (‘Shiva’) Naipaul (1945–1985) was also a novelist (Fireflies, 1970) and journalist.