“I DON’T STAND for any country,” V. S. Naipaul (b. 1932) told the media upon learning that he had won the Nobel Prize in 2001. The idea of being without a home or country—and as a result, constantly searching for an identity—runs through Naipaul’s writing. Critics categorize Naipaul as a “postcolonial” writer, in part because he was born in Trinidad to Indian parents and writes about that country and other once-colonized places, but also because his work deals with the consequences of colonization: political and cultural confusion, or in his words, a world that is “mixed and secondhand.” A controversial author, Naipaul has been embraced by some—even knighted by Queen Elizabeth!—but has drawn criticism from fellow writers like the West Indian Derek Walcott, the 1992 Nobel laureate; and the Nigerian Chinua Achebe, because he is so pessimistic about the futures of formerly colonized nations. What do you know about this man without a country? Take this quick quiz.
1. Who inspired the title character in A House for Mr. Biswas (1961) ?
2. What book earned Naipaul the Booker Prize in 1971?
3. What religion was the subject of Among the Believers (1981) and Beyond Belief (1998) ?
4. Where did Naipaul attend college?
5. How did Naipaul’s Indian grandparents come to Trinidad?
ANSWERS
1. Seepersad Naipaul, V. S. Naipaul’s father.
2. In a Free State.
3. Islam. Naipaul is a harsh critic of Islamic fundamentalism. One of his more inflammatory comments on the subject was that Islamic women in the West should not wear headscarves.
4. Oxford University. He left for England to attend school when he was eighteen, and he has lived there ever since.
5. They came as indentured servants—owing five years of labor in sugarcane fields to pay their passage from India.