“That element of surprise is what I look for when I am writing. It is my way of judging what I am doing - which is never an easy thing to do.”

Trinidad and Tobago-born British writer

Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul was a Trinidad and Tobago-born British writer, active across the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. He wrote fiction and nonfiction in English, and was known for his wide-ranging career and his 90 quotes on this site. His early novels, set in Trinidad, are often comic in tone, while later novels are more severe and concerned with alienation in the wider world. He also wrote careful accounts of places and travel. His prose was widely admired, although some of his views drew controversy. Over more than fifty years, he published more than thirty books.