Novelist V.S. Naipaul Passes Away at 85

V.S. Naipaul, a Nobel Prize-winning novelist who travelled the world exploring suppressed histories, scrutinizing colonialism, and offering controversial takes on both place and identity, passed away in his London home on Saturday, his family confirmed to The Associated Press. He was 85 years old.

His wife, Nadira Naipaul, said he was “a giant in all that he achieved and he died surrounded by those he loved having lived a life which was full of wonderful creativity and endeavor.”

Profiled in the August 1981 issue of Vogue, Naipaul also occasionally contributed to the magazine. In the November 1959 issue, he wrote "Caribbean Medley,” which explored tourism to the islands. In the March 1961 issue, he wrote a story called "The Enemy.”

Naipaul was born in Chaguanas, Trinidad and Tobago, in 1932 into a family who had migrated from India. In 2008, he described his childhood as “terrible … very large, with too many people. There was no beauty. It was full of malice.” He moved to England in 1950 on a government scholarship, where he studied English at Oxford. After graduating, he began working for BBC World Service, where he began writing short stories on the side.

His first novel, "The Mystic Masseur,” was published in 1957, and explored the comedic story of an Indian schoolteacher in Port of Spain, Trinidad, who takes up his father's trade as a masseur and becomes a local legend. In 1961, he published “A House for Mr Biswas,” perhaps his most famous work—and most semi-autobiographical, as many of his novels were—which told the story of an Indo-Trinidadian man who vows to own his own house one day.

Much of Naipaul’s later works, both fiction and nonfiction, shifted focus from comedic to critical, where he began exploring his personal journey from Trinidad to London, as well as documenting visits to India, Africa, and the Carribean. His works were not without controversy: Some critics viewed his stances on third-world countries as too Westernized, bigoted, misogynistic, and ignorant, while others viewed his many novels on Islam as an overal attack on religion.

Meanwhile, other critics praised his ability to discuss politics in a way that was undeniably original and ideology-free. He also had an unrelenting nature to give voice to forgotten stories in history. In 2001, he won the Nobel prize for Literature “for having united perceptive narrative and incorruptible scrutiny in works that compel us to see the presence of suppressed histories.”