Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul, T.C. (born August 17, 1932, in Chaguanas, Trinidad and Tobago), better known as V. S. Naipaul, is a Trinidadian-born British novelist of Hindu heritage and Indo-Trinidadian ethnicity. Naipaul lives in Wiltshire, England. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2001 and knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1990. His current wife is Nadira Naipaul, a former journalist. A scion of the politically powerful Capildeo family of Trinidad, Sir Vidia is the son, older brother, uncle, and cousin of published authors Seepersad Naipaul, Shiva Naipaul, Neil Bissoondath, and Vahni Capildeo, respectively.

Life and work

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In awarding Naipaul the Nobel Prize for Literature, the Swedish Academy praised his work "for having united perceptive narrative and incorruptible scrutiny in works that compel us to see the presence of suppressed histories." The Committee added, "Naipaul is a modern philosophe, carrying on the tradition that started originally with Lettres persanes and Candide. In a vigilant style, which has been deservedly admired, he transforms rage into precision and allows events to speak with their own inherent irony." The Committee also noted Naipaul's affinity with the Polish-born British author of Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad: "Naipaul is Conrad's heir as the annalist of the destinies of empires in the moral sense: what they do to human beings. His authority as a narrator is grounded in the memory of what others have forgotten, the history of the vanquished."

His fiction and especially his travel writing have been criticised for their allegedly unsympathetic portrayal of the Third World. Edward Said, for example, has argued that he "allowed himself quite consciously to be turned into a witness for the Western prosecution", promoting "colonial mythologies about wogs and darkies" (53). This perspective is most salient in The Middle Passage, which Naipaul composed after returning to the Caribbean after ten years of self-exile in England, and An Area of Darkness, a stark condemnation on his ancestral homeland of India. His supporters argue that he is actually an advocate for a more realistic development of the Third World, that he is motivated by a passionate desire for the improvement of the countries which he writes about, and that the assumptions of the likes of Said actually hold these emerging nations back. That said, Naipaul's contempt for many aspects of liberal orthodoxy is uncompromising, yet he has exhibited an open-mindedness toward some Third World leaders and cultures that isn't found in western writers. His works have become required reading in many schools within the Third World.

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L.A. Times - Books & Talks

'The Second Plane' by Martin Amis
Mon, 14 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700
September 11: Terror and Boredom IT would be too easy to read Martin Amis' slim book on Sept. 11 in a day and to dismiss it with a politically correct glare. The dozen essays, columns and reviews and two short stories in "The Second Plane: September 11, Terror and Boredom" are more illuminating than that, though deeply, sometimes self-indulgently flawed.
'The House of Widows' by Askold Melnyczuk
Mon, 07 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700
Family secrets lie at the end of a dark and twisted path FROM its puzzling opening line ("The most common grammatical error is the lie"), there's an ominous vibe to Askold Melnyczuk's third novel, "The House of Widows," and the sense of unease lingers until the final sentence. It's a mysterious, masterfully taut story in which dread plays a prominent role.
'Marco Polo' by Laurence Bergreen
Wed, 24 Oct 2007 00:00:00 -0700
An account of the adventures of the celebrated 13th century world traveler. MARCO POLO was only 17 when he departed for China in 1271 with his father, Niccolò, and his uncle, Maffeo. Those two merchants of Venice were known to the boy primarily as storytellers of their fabulous exploits, writes award-winning biographer and historian Laurence Bergreen, for they had been absent more than 16 years, Marco's entire childhood. The pair had followed trade routes east, encountered exotic countries and customs and survived many perils; they had even lived for a time at the court of Kublai Khan, the leader of the Mongol Empire. Eventually they agreed to accompany his emissary west to the pope, vowing to return to Cambulac (Beijing) with several items the Great Khan had requested.

NYT > Books

Cape Cod Murder Case Adds Another Chapter
Thu, 28 Aug 2008 03:17:17 -0000
Peter Manso is writing a book about the high-profile murder of Christa Worthington on Cape Cod. And now he’s run afoul of the same justice system his book promises to expose as corrupt.
Books of The Times: An Orphan Becomes a Novice Grave Robber and Unearths Some Surprises
Thu, 28 Aug 2008 03:12:23 -0000
Hannah Tinti’s debut novel is an American Dickensian tale with touches of Harry Potterish whimsy, along with a macabre streak of spooky New England history.
Books of The Times: Weapons of Mass Destruction and Other Imaginative Acts
Wed, 27 Aug 2008 15:05:50 -0000
In addition to fresh revelations about the W.M.D. megascandal, Ron Suskind offers a complex web of intersecting narratives that manage to show us, in this age of terror, “the true way of the world.”

Fiction & Poetry

We Did Not Make Ourselves
Michael Dickman Mon, 25 Aug 2008 04:00:00 -0000
We did not make ourselves is one thing I keep singing into my hands while falling asleep for just a second before I have to get up and turn on all the lights in the house, one after the other, like opening an Advent calendar My brain opening the chemical . . .
Reunion
Jeffrey Skinner Mon, 25 Aug 2008 04:00:00 -0000
Why do you keep returning, alive, able to walk and gesture as you could not at the end, your movements sketchy, more holographic than warm? Thanksgiving dinner with all the relatives and I alone with the suspicion I cannot speak: You should be elsewhere. Heavy drinking, as always. The newest . . .
Gorse Is Not People
Janet Frame Mon, 25 Aug 2008 04:00:00 -0000
Do you remember your twenty-first birthday? The party, the cake, and cutting a slice of it to put under your pillow that night, to make you dream of your future beloved; the giant key; the singing: I’m twenty-one today! Twenty-one today! I’ve got the key of the . . .

London Review of Books

Just Two Clicks · Jonathan Raban: The Virtual Life of Neil Entwistle
As Barack Obama never tires of saying, America is a country where 'ordinary people can do extraordinary things.' In January 2006, Neil Entwistle, a seemingly ordinary 27-year-old Englishman with an honours degree from the University of York, who had been living in the US for barely four months, shot dead his American wife, Rachel, and their baby daughter, Lillian, with a long-barrelled Colt .22 revolver borrowed from his father-in-law's gun collection. By the time the bodies were discovered in their house in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, huddled together beneath a rumpled duvet in the brand-new four-poster bed bought by the couple just ten days before, Entwistle was home in England, living with his parents in Worksop, as if what had happened in America was a violent dream from which he'd woken to reality in his old back bedroom at 27 Coleridge Road.
A Man or a Girl's Blouse? · Jeremy Harding: Serbia after Karadzic
At the time of the parliamentary elections in Serbia earlier this summer, the possibility that Radovan Karadzic, once the leader of the Bosnian Serbs, might be handed over to stand trial at The Hague seemed remote. The acquittal of the former KLA leader Ramush Haradinaj in April had stunned opinion in Serbia and added to the sense that the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia was a Serb-grinding machine which spat out Bosnians, Kosovo Albanians and Croats intact. The idea of any more Serbs going on trial was not popular: even someone like Karadzic, born in Montenegro, long resident in Sarajevo and regarded by many as a ludicrous figure. His arrest late last month illustrates how rapidly things are changing in Serbia, and how keen the new pro-European leadership is to drive its policies forward. The process of EU accession has long been conditional on the delivery of the big three: Karadzic, Goran Hadzic, a Croatian Serb wanted for the massacre of Croats in Vukovar in 1991, and Ratko Mladic, the hands-on commander at Srebrenica. But the capture of Dr Karadzic - psychiatrist, poet, New Age healer, telegenic bigot and mass murderer - is the greater public relations coup.
Past Its Peak · Michael Klare on the Oil Crisis
Unlike the oil 'shocks' of the 1970s, the current energy crisis is almost certain to be long-lasting. None of the quick fixes proposed by pundits and politicians - drilling in protected wilderness and maritime areas, curbs on commodity speculators, pressure on members of Opec to increase output - is likely to have much impact. In 1973-74 and again in 1979-80, events in the Middle East led to a sharp reduction in the flow of oil from the Persian Gulf, causing a contraction in global supplies and a rise in energy prices, and thus sparking a global recession. But when equilibrium of a sort was restored to the region, the oil began to flow again and the crisis passed. Now, however, the imbalance between supply and demand is largely due to factors inherent in oil commerce itself - and so is less easily solved.

guardian.co.uk Books

The guardian first book award longlist: The Outcast by Sadie Jones
Sadie Jones Thu, 28 Aug 2008 23:06:28 -0000
A young man is released from prison and starts his journey home in this extract from Sadie Jones' The Outcast
The guardian first book award longlist: A Case of Exploding Mangoes by Mohammed Hanif
Mohammed Hanif Thu, 28 Aug 2008 23:06:28 -0000
In an extract from his book, A Case of Exploding Mangoes, Mohammed Hanif describes how, in the Pakistani army, noise not only annoys, it rules
The guardian first book award longlist: Say You're One of Them by Uwem Akpan
Uwem Akpan Thu, 28 Aug 2008 23:06:27 -0000
In this extract from Say You're One of Them, a collection of short stories by Ukem Akpan, two parents shield their daughter from a terrible secret

NPR Topics: Books

Supersleuth Mixes Crime, Comedy
Thu, 28 Aug 2008 16:34:00 -0400
A comic thriller composed with literary refinement and an ear for wordplay, Adam Davies' Mine All Mine bounces through a world of objets d'art and tranquilizer darts.
Tracing The Roots Of 'Irish Madness'
Thu, 28 Aug 2008 13:32:00 -0400
For five generations, Patrick Tracey's family has been plagued by what he calls "a perfect storm of schizophrenia." In his new book, Stalking Irish Madness, he traces his family lineage — and the roots of the disease — all the way back to Ireland.
Sifting Through Summer, Page By Page
Wed, 27 Aug 2008 15:20:00 -0400
The last summer holiday, Labor Day, is fast approaching and Karen Grigsby Bates is planning to use the weekend to kick back and catch up on some summer reading.

Slashdot: Book Reviews

Zero Day Threat
samzenpus Wed, 27 Aug 2008 17:10:00 -0000
Ben Rothke writes "Zero Day Threat: the Shocking Truth of How Banks and Credit Bureaus Help Cyber Crooks Steal Your Money and Identity is an interesting and eye-opening look at how banks and credit card companies make ID theft and fraud rather elementary. But with all that, this book must be read in the larger context of how today's society deals with, and is often oblivious to, risk. When is comes to risk, American society tolerates tens of thousands of drunk-driving deaths, gives millions in federal tobacco subsidies, and is oblivious about near-epidemics such as heart disease, obesity, and diabetes. With all that, it is doubtful that the myriad horror stories Zero Day Threat details will persuade Congress or the other players to do anything to curtail the problem with identity theft and internet fraud." Keep reading for the rest of Ben's review.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Bottom of The Barrel Book Reviews-Confessions of a Recovering Preppie
samzenpus Mon, 25 Aug 2008 16:34:00 -0000
An anonymous reader writes "Michael de Mare's, Confessions of a Recovering Preppie, has been sitting on my desk a long time, for good reason. They say you can't always judge a book by it's cover but in this case, the unintentionally embarrassing front is perfect. Confessions is a painfully ordinary collection of college stories. Michael seems to have a different definition for the word preppie than the good people at Webster or I do. Even though the author specializes in cryptography, he seems unable to decipher any social situation, himself or the code to writing a book worth reading. Click below to see how confusing it gets.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
My Job Went To India
samzenpus Wed, 20 Aug 2008 16:11:00 -0000
Josh Skillings writes "The author, Chad Fowler, draws upon his experiences as a software engineer, a team leader over a group of Indian developers, and as a jazz musician, to describe 52 ways or tips that will help you to become a more valuable employee. These tips are described in two or three pages each, and are usually illustrated by a practical example or story. The tips are well thought-out, well-explained and make sense. Chad draws upon the open source movement as well, highlighting ways that contributing to and learning from open source can improve your career. These tips gave me greater respect and appreciation for the open source movement in general." Read on for the rest of Josh's review.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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