Posted on August 13, 2018 at 9:43 AM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek
Author V.S. Naipaul died this past weekend at age 85, leaving behind a complex legacy: literary prizes and troubling personal allegations.
Naipaul received the Booker Prize in 1971, a knighthood in 1989, and the Nobel Prize for literature in 2001.
Yet he also, as the Slate reporter who reported on his death wrote, “inflicted extreme psychological abuse on his first wife, Patricia Hale; beat his mistress; and seemed defiantly proud of his racism, misogyny, and toxic political views.”
To focus only on his literary work, we recommend reading The Guardian’s obituary.
But if, like Slate’s Isaac Chotiner, you struggle to dissociate the writer from the person, we suggest heading here for Chotiner’s piece.
Categories: Today in Books