born Aug. 17, 1932, Trinidad
Trinidadian novelist.
Descended from Hindu Indians who immigrated to Trinidad as indentured servants, Naipaul left Trinidad in 1950 to attend Oxford University and settled in England. He won critical recognition with A House for Mr. Biswas (1961), about an immigrant's attempt to assert his identity and independence. Other novels that explore, in an often harshly critical tone, the disintegration and alienation typical of postcolonial nations include In a Free State (1971, Booker Prize), Guerrillas (1975), and A Bend in the River (1979). He also wrote The Enigma of Arrival (1987), Half a Life (2001), and nonfictional studies of India. Naipaul was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2001.