V.S. Naipaul Books In Order

Publication Order of India Trilogy Books

Publication Order of Willie Chandran Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Collections

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

V.S. Naipaul is a famous Trinidadian author of the Indian origin and the Nobel Prize winner. He was born as Vidiadgar Surajprasad Naipul in Trinidad and Tobago, and also had the nationality of Britain. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in the year 2001 for one of his novels called half A Life. Naipaul has published over 30 novels in his writing career based on the autobiographical chronicles about life and traveling, most of which are set in the developing countries. His books include both the fiction and nonfiction setups. Naipaul has successfully extended his writing career over a period of 50 years, which he had started by writing comic novels earlier. He has also won the Booker Prize in the year 1971, thus making his career as an author to be a prosperous one. After having been born in Chaguanas in Trinidad and Tobago, Naipaul went on to study in England. He was born on August 17, 1932 and was married to Patricia Ann Hale between the years 1955 and 1996. Patricia used to serve as the editor, first reader, and the critic for each of Naipaul’s writings. Later, he dedicated one of his notable novels to her after her death. Later, Naipaul married a former Pakistani journalist name Nadira Khannum Alvi in the year 1996. He was knighted in the year 1989. The ancestors of Naipaul had migrated to Trinidad and Tobago from India as the indentured servants, where he was raised too. In the later years of his life, he became famous for writing wistful comic books about the life and travels of Trinidad, which depicted a wider world made more special with the passage of people. The proses of his early novels were written in a characteristic way and were widely admired.

At the age of 17, Naipaul won a government scholarship from the government of Trinidad that allowed him the opportunity to study abroad. He went on to describe in the later days of his successful writing career that the scholarship gave him the chance to study at any institution of his choice and choose the subject that he liked for his higher education in the British Commonwealth. However, he opted to go to Oxford and complete a simple degree in the English subject. He said that he decided to study the English Literature because he wanted to become an author and wanted to last just for writing novels. In the year 1950, Naipaul boarded a flight headed towards New York, but instead took a boat ride the next day and went to London. The highlight of the writing career of author V.S. Naipaul was when he was awarded with the Nobel prize in the year 2001 for his contribution to Literature. He was specifically praised for uniting the perceptive narrative and giving an incorruptible narrative in his works that compelled everyone to see the presence of the suppressed histories in the modern world. When Naipaul was studying at Oxford, he felt that his earlier attempts in writing novels were contrived. Therefore, he became depressed for a little while because of being lonely and not knowing what he should do in his life ahead. Then, he took an exciting trip to Spain in the year 1952, which changed his life after he had spent all his savings there. And with the support of his first wife, Patricia Hale, he began to write once again. Before becoming a published author, Naipaul had to borrow money from the family of Patricia and now says that he was blessed to have her as a partner and savior in his life.

One of the initial novels written by author V.S, Naipaul was titled ‘Miguel Street’. It was first published in the year 1959 and then in the year 2002, the Vintage publishing house published it again. The plot of the novel deals with the slums located in the Miguel Street in Trinidad. Even though the slums would not impress any stranger, to its residents it was a complete world, situated in the derelict corner of the capital of Trinidad. All the residents of the Miguel Street seemed different from each other. One of the characters is a carpenter named Popo, who does not care about his livelihood in order to a thing without a name. Then there is another character known as Man-man, who runs for the public office and then goes on to stage his own crucifixion. The Big Foot is described as a dreaded bully who seems to have tear ducts made of glass. Also, there is Mrs. Hereira, who seems to be under pressure from her monstrous husband. Author Naipaul has tried to render the lives and legends of the residents of Miguel Street in a funny way, by describing them with Chekhovian compassion and Dickensian verve. The novel is set during the Second World War and is narrated by a neighborhood boy in Miguel Street, who seems to be very observant. The readers found the novel to be a work showing the mercurial mood shifts and turns anarchically funny and sweetly melancholy. The plot of the novel seems to overflow with life with every turning page.

One of the other initial novel written by author V.S. Naipaul was titled ‘Half a Life’. It was published by the Vintage International publishing house in the year 2001. The plot of the novel shows a narrative that moves swiftly like a dream from India to England and then to Africa. Author Naipaul has described a resonant study about the fraudulent bargains that help constitute an identity. In the opening sequence of the plot of the novel, Willie Chandran is depicted as the son of a Brahmin father but marries a lower caste woman. All his life he has sensed the hollowness at the center of the self-denial of his father and has vowed to live his life more authentically. He moves in search of such an authentic life takes him to the literary and immigrant Bohemias of London during the 1950s. Willie Chandran goes on to have an unsatisfying career as an author, after which he moves to a decaying colony of Portuguese in East Africa. He finds the much required happiness there and does not think of betraying it. The novel depicts the pinnacle of the life of author Naipaul as it is orchestrated by him in a brilliant way, for which he went on to win the Nobel Prize.