V.S. Naipaul has died

[Filuwaúrdjan]

A famously... difficult... man, but in spite of that* one of the greatest writers of the 20th century and one of the greatest writers in English full stop. His output was so diverse and of such high quality that it's hard to say what was best, but A House for Mr Biswas (based on the unbelievably grim life of his poor, frustrated father) is an essential read if you have an at all sick sense of humour, while the chapter 'Fantasy and Ruins' in An Area of Darkness is one of the most genuinely insightful things I've ever read about history.

He was, o/c, also a talented and notorious troll before the term existed. Even though this is a brief post, it is essential to mention the decades-long feud with Derek Walcott (another non-white son of the West Indies who consistently outdid the English at writing English: both he and Naipaul won entirely deserved Nobel's) which was conducted in the spirit of frankly cartoonish pettiness and was a fine example of what cricket enthusiasts tend to euphemistically label 'island politics'.

_{*Actually almost certainly because of that.}

[EPG]

It's not at all clear that any such figures in English-language literature will succeed this generation.