NOBEL PRIZE FOR LITERATURE

British novelist and essayist V.S. Naipul was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature on Thursday, October 11, 2001, following the awards for medicine, physics, chemistry and economics, as reported by the Associated Press.

The prize committee cited, among other reasons, Naipul's "incorruptible scrutiny in works that compel us to see the presence of suppressed histories." Naipul's work takes a particularly hard line in his critical assessments of Islamic fundamentalists, a point the prize committee admits may come across a political statement in the wake of global events. At a recent reading, Naipul himself condemned the attacks, adding that Islam is essentially a form of colonialism: "To be converted you have to destroy your past, destroy your history. You have to stamp on it, you have to say 'My ancestral culture does not exist, it doesn't matter.'"

Of the Nobel Prize honor Naipul said, "I am utterly delighted. This is an unexpected accolade... It is a great tribute to both England, my home, and to India, home of my ancestors."

HOUSE FOR MR. BISWAS
V. S. Naipaul
Vintage
ISBN: 0375707166

 

 

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