(BBC) Trinidadian novelist Sir VS Naipaul, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature, has died at his home in London aged 85, his family have said.
Sir Vidia, who was born in rural Trinidad in 1932, was known for works including A Bend in the River and his masterpiece, A House for Mr Biswas.
He won the Booker Prize in 1971 and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2001.
His wife Lady Naipaul called him a “giant in all that he achieved”.
She said he died “surrounded by those he loved having lived a life which was full of wonderful creativity and endeavour”.
Sir Vidia, who as a child was read Shakespeare and Dickens by his father, attended Oxford University in 1950 after winning a government scholarship giving him entry into any Commonwealth university of his choosing.
As a student, he struggled with depression and attempted suicide.
His first book, The Mystic Masseur, was published in 1951. His most celebrated novel, A House for Mr Biswas, took over three years to write and was published a decade later.
