The Enigma of Arrival

Written with the expected beauty of style … Instead of diminishing life, Naipaul ennobles it – Anthony BurgessThe conclusion is both heart-breaking and bracing: the only antidote to destruction – of dreams, of reality – is remembering. As eloquently as anyone now writing, Naipaul remembers * The Times *A wonderful book … a magical book * The Independent *Heartbreaking and bracing * TIME *Delicate, precise prose of the highest quality – Salman Rushdie * The Guardian *V.S. Naipaul is in almost every way an extraordinary writer … a writer of real power – Frank Kermode * The New York Times Book Review *

V.S. Naipaul was born in Trinidad in 1932. He came to England on a scholarship in 1950. He spent four years at University College, Oxford, and began to write, in London, in 1954. He pursued no other profession.

His novels include A House for Mr Biswas, The Mimic Men, Guerrillas, A Bend in the River, and The Enigma of Arrival. In 1971 he was awarded the Booker Prize for In a Free State. His works of nonfiction, equally acclaimed, include Among the Believers, Beyond Belief, The Masque of Africa, and a trio of books about India: An Area of Darkness, India: A Wounded Civilization and India: A Million Mutinies Now.

In 1990, V.S. Naipaul received a knighthood for services to literature; in 1993, he was the first recipient of the David Cohen British Literature Prize. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2001. He lived with his wife Nadira and cat Augustus in Wiltshire, and died in 2018.