In a Free State (V.S. Naipaul’s Half a Life)

Abstract

This text’s title makes a reference both to Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul’s eponymous work and to the meaning contained in the English phrase “in a free state”, the latter being directly implicated in one of the difficult questions regarding this artists: where does Naipaul belong (1932 - 2018) – is he an English, an Indian or a Trinidadian author, or is he one to whom such categorizations do not apply because in the course of his life he came to embody the very idea of the artist’s being “in a free state”. However appealing it might be to assume the latter idea, his works as well as the many debates surrounding them actually question this freedom. Because the Trinidad born future Nobel laureate (the name of the city is evocative of the Holy Trinity), had at least three homes, even though his attitude to his “homelands” was a controversial one and even though he articulated his own identity controversially and not in one go. In his Nobel lecture Naipaul suggested that the credit for the Nobel Prize should go to England where his home was, and to India, where the home of his predecessors was, but he did not emphasize the significance of Trinidad where he had been born and had grown up.