VS Naipaul dead: Nobel Prize-winning British author dies aged 85

Tom Barnes in The Independent:

Nobel Prize-winning British novelist VS Naipaul has died at his home in London at the age of 85, his family have said.

The Trinidadian-born author, most famous for his seminal 1961 novel A House for Mr Biswas, died peacefully on Friday, his wife Lady Naipaul announced.

“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 endeavour,” she said in a statement.

Naipaul published more than 30 works spanning both fiction and nonfiction in a career spanning 50 years.

Born into an Indo-Trinidadian family in Trinidad and Tobagoin 1932, the author’s earlier, comic novels were often set in the Caribbean nation.

In 1948 he won a government scholarship to read English at Oxford‘s University College, where he suffered a nervous breakdown.

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