Naipaul’s search for a ‘home’ is in a way ironical, and a case of life imitating art. For, he has spent a lifetime writing about the diaspora – both in fiction and non-fiction. The exile catches up with the literary lion in winter once again.
As the issue rages on, it would, perhaps, be appropriate to revisit Naipaul’s literary accomplishments and his oeuvre, to appreciate the literary weight of the colossus better. Owing to his particular background —Naipaul's grandfather was a Brahmin hailing from eastern India, who had come to Trinidad as indentured labour — he was always engaged with the predicament of post-colonial societies. "His travels in these emergent Third World societies have resulted in perceptive books about the forces of history at work there and are almost predictive in their analysis," says Mohini Kent. His books on Islam like Among the Believers and Beyond Belief were almost prophetic in anticipating the course of history that countries like Indonesia and Pakistan would take, much before they actually did. Similarly, his understanding and insights into the colonial histories of his homeland Trinidad and of South America’s plunders by Spaniards go beyond a stodgy historian’s narrative. He writes as a raconteur or as a classic travel writer; with his notebook, penetrating gaze and razor-sharp mind prodding people to tell their stories, tumbling out as first-person accounts.
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