Between Father and Son Family Letters
V. S. NaipaulPublished2001
Pages320
Formatpaperback
PublisherNational Geographic Books
Synopsis
At seventeen, V.S. Naipaul wanted to "follow no other profession" but writing. Awarded a scholarship by the Trinidadian government, he set out to attend Oxford, where he encountered a vastly different world from the one he yearned to leave behind. Separated from his family by continents, and grappling with depression, financial strain, loneliness, and dislocation, "Vido" bridged the distance with a faithful correspondence that began shortly before the young man's two-week journey to England and ended soon after his father's death four years later.
Here, for the first time, we have the opportunity to read this profoundly moving correspondence, which illuminates with unalloyed candor the relationship between a sacrificing father and his determined son as they encourage each other to persevere with their writing. For though his father's literary aspirations would go unrealized, Naipaul's triumphant career would ultimately vindicate his beloved mentor's legacy.
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About V. S. Naipaul
V
V. S. Naipaul
1932–2018
Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul (17 August 1932 – 11 August 2018) was a Trinidadian-born British writer of works of fiction and nonfiction in English. He is known for his comic early novels set in Trinidad, his bleaker novels of alienation in the wider world, and his vigilant chronicles of life and travels. He published more than thirty books over fifty years. Naipaul's breakthrough novel *A House for Mr Biswas* was published in 1961. He won the Booker Prize in 1971 for his novel In a *Free State,* and the Jerusalem Prize in 1983. In 1990, he was awarded the Trinity Cross, Trinidad and Tobago's highest national honour. He received a knighthood in Britain in 1990, and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2001. Some of his other works include *The Guerillas* (1975), *The Middle Passage* (1962) *A Bend in the River* (1979), *Among the Believers* (1981), *The Enigma of Arrival* (1987), *India: A Million Mutinies Now* (1990), *Beyond Belief* (1998) and *Half a Life* (2001).
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