VS Naipaul

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VS Naipaul (2016)

Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul TC (born August 17, 1932 in Chaguanas , Trinidad and Tobago , † August 11, 2018 in London ) was a British writer and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2001 . From 1950 Naipaul lived in England .

Life

Naipaul's Indian ancestors came to the British colony of Trinidad as contract workers. His father was Seepersad Naipaul (1906-1953) and his mother Droapatie Capildeo. In the first years of his life, Naipaul lived with his mother's family in a north Indian style house known as the Lion House in Chaguanas. In 1938 his father got the opportunity to work as a journalist for the Trinidad Guardian in Port of Spain . Father and son moved to Port of Spain to a house of the Capildeo family. V. S. Naipaul attended the Tranquility Boys School from 1938 to 1942 and later the oldest and most British-oriented secondary school in Port of Spain, the Queen's Royal College. In 1946, the father managed to buy a house in Port of Spain and thus bring the family back together. Naipaul processed the story of his childhood and that of his father in the novel A House for Mister Biswas .

In 1950 Naipaul went to England on a scholarship and studied English at University College in Oxford . In 1955 he married Patricia Hale, with whom he was together for 41 years until her death. From 1972 to 1995 he also had a relationship with Margaret Goodings that his wife knew about. After Hale's death, he also separated from Goodings. In 1996 he married Nadira Khannum Alvi.

Naipaul died in August 2018, six days before his 86th birthday. He left behind a second wife and a daughter.

Journalistic activity

From the mid-1950s he worked as a freelancer for the BBC . Then he devoted himself entirely to his writing.

In addition to his novels , Naipaul is known for his experience reports from different regions and cultures around the world. His numerous travels led him a. a. to India (first 1961), Zaire , Uganda, Iran, Pakistan, Malaysia and Indonesia. This activity also earned him the reputation of a travel writer , although his experience reports and analyzes go far beyond the usual form of travel reports.

Naipol described India as a "zone of darkness" and "wounded civilization" in 1961. He criticized Hinduism , which has enslaved a quarter of Indian society - the caste of the untouchables - and which has kept people small by promoting spiritual retreat. After his trip to Iran (still in the aftermath of the Islamic Revolution ) and other predominantly Islamic countries, he dealt critically with Islam and above all with extremist currents in the book An Islamic Journey .

Awards

Works

prose

Narrative works

  • The Mourners ( short story, 1950); The Mourners, German Walter Ahlers (2004)
  • The Enemy (short story, 1955); The enemy, German Walter Ahlers (2004)
  • The Mystic Masseur (novella, 1957); The mystical masseur , German Karin Graf (1984)
  • The Raffle ( short story, 1957); The raffle, German Walter Ahlers (2004)
  • My Aunt Gold Teeth ( short story, 1957); German Walter Ahlers (2004)
  • The Suffrage of Elvira (1958); Election campaign in the Caribbean. Or: One hand washes the other , German Werner Peterich (1975)
  • Miguel Street (1959)
  • The Heart (short story, 1960); The Heart, German Walter Ahlers (2004)
  • A House for Mr Biswas (1961); A house for Mr. Biswas, German Karin Graf (1981, describes life in Trinidad, based on memories of his family)
  • The Baker's Story (short story, 1962); German Walter Ahlers (2004)
  • The Night Watchman's Occurrence Book (short story, 1962); The night watchman's book of hours, German Walter Ahlers (2004)
  • Mr. Stone and the Knights Companion (1963)
  • The Mimic Men (1967)
  • A Flag on the Island (1967)
  • In a Free State (1971)
  • Guerrillas (novel, 1975); Guerillas, German Ursula von Zedlitz zu Hohenlohe (1976) - Revolution on a fictional Caribbean island
  • A Bend in the River (Novel, 1979); At the bend of the great river , German Karin Graf (1979, Naipaul's most controversial book, especially in Africa; describes in the form of a novel the experiences of an Indian around 1970 in the Congo "liberated" from colonial rule.)
  • Finding the Center (1984)
  • The Enigma of Arrival (Roman, 1987); The Riddle of Arrival, German Karin Graf (1987, Living in Great Britain for Immigrants after World War II)
  • A Way in the World (1994)
  • Half a Life (2001); Half a life, German Sabine Roth and Dirk van Gunsteren (2003 - the "half-lived" life of Willi Chandran in London in the late 1950s)
  • Magic Seeds (2004); Magische Saat, German Sabine Roth (2005 - continuation of Half a life ; Willi Chandran joins a revolutionary cell in India.)

Critical Writings

  • The Middle Passage: Impressions of Five Societies - British, French and Dutch in the West Indies an South America (1962); On the slave route. My trip to the West Indies, German Nikolaus Stingl (1999, trip through the Caribbean)
  • An Area of ​​Darkness (travel report, 1964); Land of Darkness : Foreign Home India, German Dirk van Gunsteren (1997)
  • The Loss of El Dorado (1969); Farewell to Eldorado. A colonial story , German Bettina Münch and Kathrin Razum (2001 - the story of Naipaul's homeland Trinidad)
  • India: A Wounded Civilization (1977); India. A wounded culture, German Susanne Lepsius (1978)
  • A Congo Diary (1980)
  • The Return of Eva Peron: With the Killings in Trinidad (1980, via Michael X )
  • Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey (travel report, 1981); An Islamic Journey, German Karin Graf (1982, critical journey and merciless reckoning with what Islam made of the once Hindu-influenced cultural countries of South and Southeast Asia.)
  • A Turn in the South (travelogue, 1989); In the old slave states, German Karin Graf (1990, trip through the southern states of the USA)
  • India: A Million Mutinies Now (1990); India: a country in turmoil, German Karin Graf (1992, more conciliatory than the earlier India books)
  • Dark areas: six large reports , compiled and translated from English by Karin Graf, Frankfurt am Main: Eichborn 1995, ISBN 978-3-8218-4128-1 , series Die Andere Bibliothek
  • Beyond Belief: Islamic Excursions Among the Converted Peoples (1998); Beyond Faith: A Journey into Another Islam, (1998, again critical journey through Islamic states)
  • Between Father and Son: Family Letters (1999)
  • Reading & Writing: A Personal Account (2000); Reading and Writing - The Writer and India, German Kathrin Razum (2003)
  • The Writer and the World: Essays (2002); America. Lessons of a New World, German Monika Noll and Ulrich Enderwitz (2003, contains Columbus and Crusoe, Jaques Soustelle and the decline of the West, New York with Norman Mailer, Steinbeck in Monterey, Argentina and the ghost of Eva Perón, Climatised bubble: The Republicans in Dalls, Rigorous Breeding in Grenada, A Fistful of Dust: Cheddi Jagan and the Revolution in Guiana, Postscript: Our Universal Civilization)
  • Literary Occasions: Essays (2003)
  • A Writer's People: Ways of Looking and Feeling (2007)
  • The Masque of Africa: Glimpses of African Belief (travel report, 2010); African mask game. Insights into the religions of Africa, German Anette Grube (2011)

literature

  • Patrick French: The World Is What It Is: The Authorized Biography of VS Naipaul . Random House, 2008.
  • Constantin von Barloewen : In search of Metropolis. On the cultural philosophy of VS Naipaul . In: Neue Rundschau , Vol. 93 (1982), Issue 4, pp. 124-144.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Nobel laureate VS Naipaul is dead. Süddeutsche Zeitung from August 12, 2018, accessed on August 12, 2018.
  2. ↑ Paul Ingendaay: VS Naipaul is dead: friendliness was not his mission . In: FAZ.NET . ISSN  0174-4909 ( faz.net [accessed August 12, 2018]).
  3. ↑ a b c d Kenneth Ramchand: VS Naipaul obituary. August 12, 2018, accessed August 12, 2018 .
  4. ↑ a b c Marko Martin: The man who said no: Solitaire and kitsch despiser - To the death of the novelist VS Naipaul . In: THE WORLD . August 12, 2018 ( welt.de [accessed August 12, 2018]).
  5. ↑ Bernard Imhasly: Shared echo on the Nobel Prize for VS Naipaul in taz, October 13, 2001.
  6. ^ The Man Booker Prize 1971 | The Man Booker Prizes. Retrieved August 12, 2018 .
  7. ↑ Honorary Members: VS Naipaul. American Academy of Arts and Letters, accessed March 16, 2019 .
  8. ↑ Naipaul dies at 85. Archived from the original on August 12, 2018 ; accessed on August 12, 2018 .
  9. ^ The David Cohen Prize for Literature - New Writing North . In: New Writing North . ( newwritingnorth.com [accessed August 12, 2018]).

Web links

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personal data
SURNAME Naipaul, VS
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Naipaul, Vidiadhar Surajprasad (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British writer and Nobel Prize for Literature
DATE OF BIRTH August 17, 1932
PLACE OF BIRTH Chaguanas , Trinidad and Tobago
DATE OF DEATH 11th August 2018
Place of death London