First published 2009
V.S. Naipaul departs his Caribbean homeland at seventeen with a scholarship to Oxford, leaving behind his Indian family in colonial Trinidad. Patrick French constructs this first authorized biography through exclusive access to Naipaul's private papers and personal accounts. The author traces how homesickness and depression nearly derail the young writer in 1950s London until Patricia Hale, an Englishwoman, commits herself to supporting his literary ambitions. She remains devoted for over forty years, even as Naipaul conducts a twenty-four-year extramarital affair that ignites his creative powers. French examines the connection between Naipaul's turbulent personal relationships and his literary output, following his development from displaced colonial subject to global chronicler of migration and cultural displacement. The biography reveals how Naipaul's single-minded pursuit of literary greatness shaped every aspect of his life, often at great personal cost to those around him.
Genres: biography, literary-fiction, 20th-century, biography-memoir, 21st-century, academic
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: displaced-protagonist, pursuit-of-greatness
Setting: Caribbean, London, Oxford, Trinidad
Period: 1950s
613 pages · Paperback · Atlas