SOURCE: Morris, Mervyn. “Sir Vidia and the Prize.” World Literature Today 76, no. 2 (spring 2002): 11-14.

In the following essay, Morris discusses the mixed reaction to Naipaul's 2001 Nobel Prize for Literature and traces the author's attitude toward Trinidad in his writings.

V. S. Naipaul has published novels, short stories, autobiography, letters,¹ travel books, enquiries into history and politics, critical essays, personal essays, and innovative combinations of these forms. “My aim every time,” he says in his Nobel Lecture, “was [to] do a book, to create something that would be easy and interesting to read.” There is worldwide consensus that this has been achieved. It is generally acknowledged that the man writes very well.

Not everyone admires Naipaul, however. There are some formidable, well-known names among the readers who have expressed serious reservations. Baldly summarized, their main complaints are that much of Naipaul's work displays a lack of ordinary human sympathy...