SOURCE: Thieme, John. “Naipaul's Nobel.” Journal of Commonwealth Literature 37, no. 1 (2002): 1-7.

In the following essay, Thieme finds it surprising that Naipaul was awarded the 2001 Nobel Prize for Literature.

Perhaps it shouldn't have done, but in many ways it came as something of a surprise to hear that V. S. Naipaul had won the 2001 Nobel Prize for Literature. His name had first been mentioned in connection with the Prize at least three decades before, at a time when his reputation was riding high with both the British literary establishment and in academic circles; and the succession of accolades that had been showered on him in the U.K. had culminated in the award of the Booker for In a Free State in 1971. At that time it seemed likely that, given the political rotations that appeared to characterize the award of the Nobel, there might be well be a Caribbean...