V.S. Naipaul (17 August 1932-11 August 2018) is one of the greatest literary figures of the 20th century, widely recognized not only for the stylistic grace of his prose, but also for the impressive variety of his topics and the probingly contemplative orientation of his writing. In some of his novels, particularly those that deal with his Trinidad childhood and youth, he also excels in humorous narratives full of sympathy for the characters they so unflinchingly expose. For his outstanding literary achievement, Naipaul was awarded the Booker Prize in 1971, a knighthood for his services to literature in 1990, and the Nobel Prize for literature in 2001, which recognized in particular the outstanding value of his philosophical novel

The Enigma of Arrival

(1987), but encompassed, of course,…

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Citation: Radovic, Stanka. "V. S. Naipaul". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 13 October 2014; last revised 23 October 2018. [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=5122, accessed 19 March 2024.]

5122 V. S. Naipaul 1 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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