V S Naipaul: A voice that was heavily criticised, mocked but never ignored

His voice, even though bleak, hollow and ill-informed at times, was his own. In an age where originality seemed to have disappeared, his writing came as a powerful stroke of a master

In London, miles away from his house in the quaint village of Wiltshire where he lived with his wife Lady Nadira Naipaul and his cat Augustus, Sir V.S. Naipaul died aged 85. Naipaul was indisputably a global voice. The Nobel laureate cast his shadow on all things that were relevant in the world in which he lived – the ironies of exile, the various beliefs and portraits of the post-colonial worlds. In 2001, the Swedish Academy described Naipaul as “a literary circumnavigator, only ever really at home in himself, in his inimitable voice”. It was true. He