V.S. Naipaul (1932-), Novelist

Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad ('V.S.') Naipaul

Sitter in 5 portraits
A Nobel Prize-winning writer, Naipaul was born in Trinidad, coming to England in 1960 to study at Oxford University. His first novel The Mystic Masseur (1957) was followed by A House for Mr Biswas (1961). Naipaul's literary themes include exile and displacement; he won the Booker Prize with In a Free State in 1971. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2001.