V. S. Naipaul
V. S. Naipaul
Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul, TC, is a Trinidadian Nobel Prize-winning British writer known for his comic early novels set in Trinidad and Tobago, his bleaker later novels of the wider world, and his autobiographical chronicles of life and travels. He has published more than 30 books, both of fiction and nonfiction, over some 50 years...
NationalityTrinidadian
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth17 August 1932
book writing luck
Whatever extra there is in me at any given moment isn't fully formed. I am hardly aware of it; it awaits the next book. It will - with luck - come to me during the actual writing, and it will take me by surprise
writing wish would-be
I wish my prose to be transparent—I don't want the reader to stumble over me; I want him to look through what I'm saying to what I'm describing. I don't want him ever to say, Oh, goodness, how nicely written this is. That would be a failure.
writing support
Writing has to support itself.
book writing ends
Many writers tend to write summing-up books at the end of their lives.
art writing done
Great writing can be done in biography, history, art.
writing littles narrative
If you write a novel alone you sit and you weave a little narrative. And it's O.K., but it's of no account.
strong writing masters
When I learnt to write I became my own master, I became very strong, and that strength is with me to this very day.
character writing fiction
Whenever I have had to write fiction, I've always had to invent a character who roughly has my background.
writing oppression ifs
If writers just sit and talk about oppression, they are not going to do much writing.
writing ideas intuition
The reason is that they define how I have gone about my business. I have trusted to intuition. I did it at the beginning. I do it even now. I have no idea how things might turn out, where in my writing I might go next.
writing documentation details
All the details of the life and the quirks and the friendships can be laid out for us, but the mystery of the writing will remain. No amount of documentation, however fascinating, can take us there.
writing judging looks
That element of surprise is what I look for when I am writing. It is my way of judging what I am doing - which is never an easy thing to do.
writing hysteria comedy
One always writes comedy at the moment of deepest hysteria.
writing two pieces
I read a piece of writing and within a paragraph or two I know whether it is by a woman or not.