Shiva Naipaul: Difference between revisions

Shiva Naipaul
Shiva Naipaul
Born	25 February 1945
Died	13 August 1985 (aged 40); London Borough of Camden
Language	English language
Notable awards	Guggenheim Fellowship

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Shiva Naipaul (/ˈnaɪpɔːl, naɪˈpɔːl/; 25 February 1945 – 13 August 1985), born Shivadhar Srinivasa Naipaul in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, was an Indo-Trinidadian and British novelist and journalist.

Life and work[edit]

Shiva Naipaul was the younger brother of novelist V. S. Naipaul. He went first to Queen's Royal College and St Mary's College in Trinidad, then emigrated to Britain, having won a scholarship to study Chinese at University College, Oxford. At Oxford, he met and later married Jenny Stuart, with whom he had a son, Tarun.^[1]

With Jenny's support, Shiva Naipaul wrote his first novel, Fireflies (1970), which won the Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize from the Royal Society of Literature for best regional novel. It was followed by The Chip-Chip Gatherers (1973). He then decided to concentrate on journalism, and wrote two non-fiction works, North of South (1978) and Black & White (1980), before returning to the novel form in the 1980s with A Hot Country (1983), a departure from his two earlier comic novels set in Trinidad, as well as a collection of fiction and non-fiction, Beyond the Dragon's Mouth: Stories and Pieces (1984).^[1]

Death[edit]

On the morning of 13 August 1985, at the age of 40, Naipaul had a fatal heart attack while working at his desk.^[1]

In an essay V. S. Naipaul wrote for The New Yorker, published in 2019, his older brother reports that he wasn't surprised at the time to hear about Shiva's death, that Shiva was a drinker, and that a year prior to his death (at a funeral for their younger sister that both had attended) V. S. describes having already seen the look of death in his brother's face.”^[2]

Legacy and posthumous reputation[edit]

The Spectator magazine, for which his wife Jenny had worked as a secretary, and which had published many of his articles, established the Shiva Naipaul Memorial Prize.^[3]^[4]

Writing for The Atlantic in 2008, Christopher Hitchens called his debut novel Fireflies "one of the great tragicomic novels of our day".^[5]

In Paul Theroux's Sir Vidia's Shadow, a memoir of Shiva's elder brother, V. S. Naipaul, Theroux described Shiva as a "sot", shrunken by the towering figure of his successful brother, with a penchant for drunken partying and a need to have his meals made for him. Theroux also took issue with Naipaul's skills as a writer, particularly as a travel writer. Sir Vidia's Shadow has come under attack for what are described as inaccuracies,^[6] and the novelist Martin Amis wrote that "Shiva Naipaul was one of those people who caused your heart to lift when he entered the room ... in losing him, we have lost thirty years of untranscribed, unvarnished genius".^[7]^[8]

An Arena documentary on his brother V. S. Naipaul reproduced footage of Shiva from an earlier documentary from the early 1980s, in which Shiva returned to Trinidad to see his mother.^{[citation needed]}^[9]

Shiva Naipaul's literary archive is held at the British Library. The collection (The Shiva Naipaul Archive) "consists of autograph and typescript drafts of Shiva Naipaul's fiction novels, non-fiction and travel writing. It also includes research and drafts relating to his articles, short stories and prose. There is a run of autograph notebooks, largely with notes and research gathered on his travels in India, Trinidad and Tobago, Surinam, Guyana, America, South Africa, Africa, and Australia. There is correspondence dating form his university days, with his family, his wife and a run of business correspondence."^[10]

Works[edit]

Novels

Fireflies (1970)
The Chip-Chip Gatherers (1973)
A Hot Country (1983), published in the U.S. as Love and Death in a Hot Country

Nonfiction

North of South (1978)
Black & White (1980), published in the U.S. as Journey to Nowhere
An Unfinished Journey (1986)

Collections

Beyond the Dragon's Mouth: Stories and Pieces (1984)
A Man of Mystery and Other Stories (1995), a selection of stories taken from Beyond the Dragon's Mouth

References[edit]

^ ^a ^b ^c Geoffrey Wheatcroft, "Sardonic Genius - Geoffrey Wheatcroft recalls his friendship with the writer Shiva Naipaul, who died 20 years ago", The Spectator, 13 August 2005.
^ Naipaul, V. S. (18 December 2019). "The Strangeness of Grief". The New Yorker. One morning, thirty years after the death of my father, my telephone rang. It was my brother's wife. I asked, in the common way of courtesy, "What news?" She said, "Bad news, I'm afraid. Shiva's dead." It did not surprise me. He was a drinking man, and I had seen death on his face the previous year, at the funeral of my younger sister. People there had talked about his worrying appearance. They had tried to get him to see a doctor (there were two in the family), but he had always refused. The appearance of impending death was more noticeable on him in a television appearance a few days later—so noticeable, in fact, I wondered whether the television people had not been worried by it.
^ Tan, Clarissa. "The Spectator's Shiva Naipaul prize for outstanding travel writing is open for entries". The Spectator. Retrieved 26 September 2022.
^ "Shiva naipaul memorial prize". The Spectator. Retrieved 26 September 2022.
^ Hitchens, Christopher (2015). And Yet... Essays. London: Atlantic Books. p. 224. ISBN 9781782394587.
^ Patrick French's biography of VS Naipaul: Naipaul's friendship with Paul Theroux^{[dead link]}, The Daily Telegraph.
^ Martin Amis, New Statesman, April 1973, "Black and White" by Shiva Naipaul, reprinted in The War Against Cliché: Essays and Reviews, 1971–2000.
^ Matthew Craft, "A Critical Take On Cliche", Hartford Courant, 16 November 2001.
^ "Arena: The Strange Luck of V.S. Naipaul" (Adobe Flash). BBC iPlayer.^{[dead link]}
^ "The British Library, Western Manuscripts". The British Library. Retrieved 15 January 2020.

External links[edit]

Bibliography at fanstasticfiction.co.uk

[Wheatcroft-1] Geoffrey Wheatcroft, "Sardonic Genius - Geoffrey Wheatcroft recalls his friendship with the writer Shiva Naipaul, who died 20 years ago", The Spectator, 13 August 2005.

[2] Naipaul, V. S. (18 December 2019). "The Strangeness of Grief". The New Yorker. One morning, thirty years after the death of my father, my telephone rang. It was my brother's wife. I asked, in the common way of courtesy, "What news?" She said, "Bad news, I'm afraid. Shiva's dead." It did not surprise me. He was a drinking man, and I had seen death on his face the previous year, at the funeral of my younger sister. People there had talked about his worrying appearance. They had tried to get him to see a doctor (there were two in the family), but he had always refused. The appearance of impending death was more noticeable on him in a television appearance a few days later—so noticeable, in fact, I wondered whether the television people had not been worried by it.

[spectator/Tan/prize-open-3] Tan, Clarissa. "The Spectator's Shiva Naipaul prize for outstanding travel writing is open for entries". The Spectator. Retrieved 26 September 2022.

[spectator/tag/prize-4] "Shiva naipaul memorial prize". The Spectator. Retrieved 26 September 2022.

[5] Hitchens, Christopher (2015). And Yet... Essays. London: Atlantic Books. p. 224. ISBN 9781782394587.

[6] Patrick French's biography of VS Naipaul: Naipaul's friendship with Paul Theroux^{[dead link]}, The Daily Telegraph.

[7] Martin Amis, New Statesman, April 1973, "Black and White" by Shiva Naipaul, reprinted in The War Against Cliché: Essays and Reviews, 1971–2000.

[8] Matthew Craft, "A Critical Take On Cliche", Hartford Courant, 16 November 2001.

[9] "Arena: The Strange Luck of V.S. Naipaul" (Adobe Flash). BBC iPlayer.^{[dead link]}

[10] "The British Library, Western Manuscripts". The British Library. Retrieved 15 January 2020.

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@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 {{Use dmy dates|date=September 2016}}
 {{Use British English|date=September 2016}}
+{{Short description|Indo-Trinidadian and British novelist and journalist (1945–1985)}}
 {{Infobox writer/Wikidata
 |fetchwikidata=ALL
 }}
-'''Shiva Naipaul''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|n|aɪ|p|ɔː|l|,_|n|aɪ|ˈ|p|ɔː|l}}; 25 February 1945 – 13 August 1985), born '''Shivadhar Srinivasa Naipaul''' in [[Port of Spain]], [[Trinidad and Tobago]], was an [[Indo-Trinidadian and Tobaganian|Indo-Trinidadian]] and British novelist and journalist.
+'''Shiva Naipaul''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|n|aɪ|p|ɔː|l|,_|n|aɪ|ˈ|p|ɔː|l}}; 25 February 1945 – 13 August 1985), born '''Shivadhar Srinivasa Naipaul''' in [[Port of Spain]], [[Trinidad and Tobago]], was an [[Indo-Trinidadian and Tobagonian|Indo-Trinidadian]] and British novelist and journalist.
-==Biography==
+==Life and work==
 Shiva Naipaul was the younger brother of novelist [[V. S. Naipaul]]. He went first to [[Queen's Royal College]] and [[Saint Mary's College, Trinidad and Tobago|St Mary's College]] in Trinidad, then emigrated to Britain, having won a scholarship to study Chinese at [[University College, Oxford]]. At Oxford, he met and later married Jenny Stuart, with whom he had a son, Tarun.<ref name=Wheatcroft>Geoffrey Wheatcroft, [https://www.spectator.co.uk/2005/08/sardonic-genius/ "Sardonic Genius - Geoffrey Wheatcroft recalls his friendship with the writer Shiva Naipaul, who died 20 years ago"], ''[[The Spectator]]'', 13 August 2005.</ref>
 With Jenny's support, Shiva Naipaul wrote his first novel, ''Fireflies'' (1970), which won the [[Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize]] from the Royal Society of Literature for best regional novel.  It was followed by ''[[The Chip-Chip Gatherers]]'' (1973). He then decided to concentrate on [[journalism]], and wrote two non-fiction works, ''[[North of South]]'' (1978) and ''[[Black & White (book)|Black & White]]'' (1980), before returning to the novel form in the 1980s with ''[[A Hot Country]]'' (1983), a departure from his two earlier comic novels set in Trinidad, as well as a collection of fiction and non-fiction, ''[[Beyond the Dragon's Mouth: Stories and Pieces]]'' (1984).<ref name=Wheatcroft />
+===Death===
 On the morning of 13 August 1985, at the age of 40, Naipaul had a fatal [[heart attack]] while working at his desk.<ref name=Wheatcroft />
+In an essay V. S. Naipaul wrote for [[The New Yorker]], published in 2019, his older brother reports that he wasn't surprised at the time to hear about Shiva's death, that Shiva was a drinker, and that a year prior to his death (at a funeral for their younger sister that both had attended) V. S. describes having already seen the look of death in his brother's face.”<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/01/06/the-strangeness-of-grief|title=The Strangeness of Grief|first=V. S.|last=Naipaul|date=18 December 2019|website=The New Yorker |quote= ''One morning, thirty years after the death of my father, my telephone rang. It was my brother’s wife. I asked, in the common way of courtesy, “What news?” She said, “Bad news, I’m afraid. Shiva’s dead.” It did not surprise me. He was a drinking man, and I had seen death on his face the previous year, at the funeral of my younger sister. People there had talked about his worrying appearance. They had tried to get him to see a doctor (there were two in the family), but he had always refused. The appearance of impending death was more noticeable on him in a television appearance a few days later—so noticeable, in fact, I wondered whether the television people had not been worried by it.''}}</ref>
 ==Legacy and posthumous reputation==
-''[[The Spectator]]'' magazine, for which his wife Jenny had worked as a secretary, and which had published many of his articles, established the Shiva Naipaul Memorial Prize.<ref>[http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine/features/29375/part_8/the-visit.thtml "The visit"]{{dead link|date=December 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}, ''The Spectator''.<!-- Bot generated title --></ref>
+''[[The Spectator]]'' magazine, for which his wife Jenny had worked as a secretary, and which had published many of his articles, established the Shiva Naipaul Memorial Prize.<ref name="spectator/Tan/prize-open">{{cite news |last1=Tan |first1=Clarissa |title=The Spectator's Shiva Naipaul prize for outstanding travel writing is open for entries |url=https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-spectator-s-shiva-naipaul-prize-for-outstanding-travel-writing-is-open-for-entries |access-date=26 September 2022 |work=The Spectator}}</ref><ref name="spectator/tag/prize">{{cite news |title=Shiva naipaul memorial prize |url=https://www.spectator.co.uk/tag/shiva%20naipaul%20memorial%20prize |access-date=26 September 2022 |work=The Spectator}}</ref>
+Writing for ''[[The Atlantic]]'' in 2008, [[Christopher Hitchens]] called his debut novel ''Fireflies'' "one of the great tragicomic novels of our day".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hitchens |first=Christopher |title=And Yet... Essays |publisher=Atlantic Books |year=2015 |isbn=9781782394587 |location=London |pages=224}}</ref>
-In [[Paul Theroux]]'s ''Sir Vidia's Shadow'', a memoir of Shiva's elder brother, V. S. Naipaul, Theroux described Shiva as a "sot", shrunken by the towering figure of his successful brother, with a penchant for drunken partying and a need to have his meals made for him. Theroux also took issue with Naipaul's skills as a writer, particularly as a [[travel literature|travel writer]].
-''Sir Vidia's Shadow'' has come under attack for what are described as inaccuracies,<ref>[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/03/23/sv_naipaul.xml&page=3 Patrick French's biography of VS Naipaul: Naipaul's friendship with Paul Theroux], ''The Daily Telegraph''.<!-- Bot generated title --></ref> and the novelist [[Martin Amis]] wrote that "Shiva Naipaul was one of those people who caused your heart to lift when he entered the room ... in losing him, we have lost thirty years of untranscribed, unvarnished genius".<ref>Martin Amis, ''New Statesman'', April 1973, "Black and White" by Shiva Naipaul, reprinted in ''The War Against Cliché: Essays and Reviews, 1971–2000''.</ref><ref>Matthew Craft, [http://articles.courant.com/2001-11-16/features/0111161412_1_sir-kingsley-amis-cliches-levine "A Critical Take On Cliche"], ''Hartford Courant'', 16 November 2001.</ref>
+In [[Paul Theroux]]'s ''Sir Vidia's Shadow'', a memoir of Shiva's elder brother, V. S. Naipaul, Theroux described Shiva as a "sot", shrunken by the towering figure of his successful brother, with a penchant for drunken partying and a need to have his meals made for him. Theroux also took issue with Naipaul's skills as a writer, particularly as a [[travel literature|travel writer]]. ''Sir Vidia's Shadow'' has come under attack for what are described as inaccuracies,<ref>[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/03/23/sv_naipaul.xml&page=3 Patrick French's biography of VS Naipaul: Naipaul's friendship with Paul Theroux]{{dead link|date=July 2021|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}, ''The Daily Telegraph''.<!-- Bot generated title --></ref> and the novelist [[Martin Amis]] wrote that "Shiva Naipaul was one of those people who caused your heart to lift when he entered the room ... in losing him, we have lost thirty years of untranscribed, unvarnished genius".<ref>Martin Amis, ''New Statesman'', April 1973, "Black and White" by Shiva Naipaul, reprinted in ''The War Against Cliché: Essays and Reviews, 1971–2000''.</ref><ref>Matthew Craft, [http://articles.courant.com/2001-11-16/features/0111161412_1_sir-kingsley-amis-cliches-levine "A Critical Take On Cliche"], ''Hartford Courant'', 16 November 2001.</ref>
 An ''[[Arena (UK TV series)|Arena]]'' [[Documentary film|documentary]] on his brother V. S. Naipaul reproduced footage of Shiva from an earlier documentary from the early 1980s, in which Shiva returned to Trinidad to see his mother.{{citation needed|date=September 2016}}<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b009s80n|title=''Arena: The Strange Luck of V.S. Naipaul''|publisher= BBC iPlayer.<!-- Bot generated title -->|format=[[Adobe Flash]]|url-access=subscription }}{{expired link|date=September 2016}}</ref>
-Shiva Naipaul's literary archive is held at the [[British Library]]. The collection ([http://searcharchives.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/display.do?tabs=detailsTab&ct=display&fn=search&doc=IAMS032-003103385&indx=1&recIds=IAMS032-003103385&recIdxs=0&elementId=0&renderMode=poppedOut&displayMode=full&frbrVersion=&dscnt=0&frbg=&scp.scps=scope%3A%28BL%29&tab=local&dstmp=1579093118053&srt=rank&mode=Basic&&dum=true&vl(freeText0)=naipaul&vid=IAMS_VU2 The Shiva Naipaul Archive]) " consists of autograph and typescript drafts of Shiva Naipaul's fiction novels, non-fiction and travel writing. It also includes research and drafts relating to his articles, short stories and prose. There is a run of autograph notebooks, largely with notes and research gathered on his travels in India, Trinidad and Tobago, Surinam, Guyana, America, South Africa, Africa, and Australia. There is correspondence dating form his university days, with his family, his wife and a run of business correspondence."<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://searcharchives.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/display.do?tabs=detailsTab&ct=display&fn=search&doc=IAMS032-003103385&indx=1&recIds=IAMS032-003103385&recIdxs=0&elementId=0&renderMode=poppedOut&displayMode=full&frbrVersion=&dscnt=0&frbg=&scp.scps=scope%3A%28BL%29&tab=local&dstmp=1579093118053&srt=rank&mode=Basic&&dum=true&vl(freeText0)=naipaul&vid=IAMS_VU2|title=The British Library, Western Manuscripts|last=|first=|date=|website=The British Library|access-date=15 January 2020}}</ref>
+Shiva Naipaul's literary archive is held at the [[British Library]]. The collection ([http://searcharchives.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/display.do?tabs=detailsTab&ct=display&fn=search&doc=IAMS032-003103385&indx=1&recIds=IAMS032-003103385&recIdxs=0&elementId=0&renderMode=poppedOut&displayMode=full&frbrVersion=&dscnt=0&frbg=&scp.scps=scope%3A%28BL%29&tab=local&dstmp=1579093118053&srt=rank&mode=Basic&&dum=true&vl(freeText0)=naipaul&vid=IAMS_VU2 The Shiva Naipaul Archive]) "consists of autograph and typescript drafts of Shiva Naipaul's fiction novels, non-fiction and travel writing. It also includes research and drafts relating to his articles, short stories and prose. There is a run of autograph notebooks, largely with notes and research gathered on his travels in India, Trinidad and Tobago, Surinam, Guyana, America, South Africa, Africa, and Australia. There is correspondence dating form his university days, with his family, his wife and a run of business correspondence."<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://searcharchives.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/display.do?tabs=detailsTab&ct=display&fn=search&doc=IAMS032-003103385&indx=1&recIds=IAMS032-003103385&recIdxs=0&elementId=0&renderMode=poppedOut&displayMode=full&frbrVersion=&dscnt=0&frbg=&scp.scps=scope%3A%28BL%29&tab=local&dstmp=1579093118053&srt=rank&mode=Basic&&dum=true&vl(freeText0)=naipaul&vid=IAMS_VU2|title=The British Library, Western Manuscripts|last=|first=|date=|website=The British Library|access-date=15 January 2020}}</ref>
 ==Works==
 '''Novels'''
-*''Fireflies'' (1970)
+* ''Fireflies'' (1970)
-*''[[The Chip-Chip Gatherers]]'' (1973)
+* ''[[The Chip-Chip Gatherers]]'' (1973)
-*''[[A Hot Country]]'' (1983), published in the U.S. as ''Love and Death in a Hot Country''
+* ''[[A Hot Country]]'' (1983), published in the U.S. as ''Love and Death in a Hot Country''
 '''Nonfiction'''
-*''[[North of South]]'' (1978)
+* ''North of South'' (1978)
-*''[[Black & White (book)|Black & White]]'' (1980), published in the U.S. as ''Journey to Nowhere''
+* ''[[Black & White (book)|Black & White]]'' (1980), published in the U.S. as ''Journey to Nowhere''
-*''[[An Unfinished Journey]]'' (1986).
+* ''[[An Unfinished Journey]]'' (1986)
 '''Collections'''
-*''[[Beyond the Dragon's Mouth: Stories and Pieces]]'' (1984)
+* ''[[Beyond the Dragon's Mouth: Stories and Pieces]]'' (1984)
-*''A Man of Mystery and Other Stories'' (1995), a selection of stories taken from ''Beyond the Dragon's Mouth''.
+* ''A Man of Mystery and Other Stories'' (1995), a selection of stories taken from ''Beyond the Dragon's Mouth''
 ==See also==
@@ Line 56: / Line 62: @@
 [[Category:British male journalists]]
 [[Category:British people of Indo-Trinidadian descent]]
-[[Category:Hindavi people]]
+[[Category:Trinidad and Tobago people of Indian descent]]
 [[Category:John Llewellyn Rhys Prize winners]]
 [[Category:Male novelists]]

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