The Resume

(August 17, 1932-August 11, 2018)
Born in Chaguanas, Trinidad, Trinidad and Tobago
Birth name was Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul
Wrote 'The Mystic Masseur' (1957), 'The Suffrage of Elvira' (1958), 'Miguel Street' (1959), 'A House for Mr. Biswas' (1961), 'The Mimic Men' (1967), 'A Flag on the Island' (1967), 'In a Free State' (1971), 'Guerrillas' (1975), 'A Bend in the River' (1979), 'The Enigma of Arrival' (1987), 'A Way in the World' (1994), 'Half a Life' (2001) and 'Magic Seeds' (2004)
Knighted for services to literature (1990)
Won the Nobel Prize in Literature (2001)

Why he might be annoying:

His former disciple, travel writer Paul Theroux, revealed Naipaul's frequent use of the epithets 'wog' and 'nigger.'
He said no female writer could be his equal because of their 'sentimentality.'
He said, 'Everybody hates Jane Austen. They don't have the balls to say it.'
Three years into his first marriage, he began regularly patronizing prostitutes.
He frequently beat his long-term lover, Margaret Murray, once damaging her face so badly that she would not appear in public for several days.
After he suggested that their relationship involved consensual S&M, Murray wrote, '[Naipaul] says I didn't mind the abuse. I certainly did mind.'
He proposed to his second wife while his first wife was dying of cancer.

Why he might not be annoying:

Between the ages of seven and ten, he was sexually abused by a male cousin.
He said, 'I wish my prose to be transparent. I don't want the reader to stumble over it.'
Evelyn Waugh said that Naipaul's prose 'put to shame his British contemporaries.'
Odd connections department: Naipul's novel 'A House for Mr. Biswas' was adapted into a stage musical with songs by Monty Norman. Norman later modified one of the songs from the musical, 'Good Sign, Bad Sign,' to create the James Bond theme.

Credit: C. Fishel

Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

• Booker Prize Winners (Ranked: 1971)
• C. Fishel's Profiles [Series 57]
• Daily Beast's 11 Greatest Literary Feuds [2010] (Ranked: 5)
• I am an Adulterer
• I am Known by My Initials
• I Attended Oxford
• I Died in 2018 (Ranked: 85)
• I Married in 1996
• I Write Bildungsroman
• Knights
• Modern Library's 100 Best Novels of the 20th Century [1998] (Ranked: 72)
• Modern Library's 100 Best Novels of the 20th Century [1998] (Ranked: 83)
• My Spouse is at Least Ten Years Younger than Me
• Nobel Prize for Literature
• NPR's 100 Best Literary Characters of the 20th Century [Authors - 2002] (Ranked: 91)
• Profiles 36501-36750 (Ranked: 36529)
• Time Magazine's All-Time 100 Novels [Authors]
• Whores and Johns
• Wife Beaters and Alleged Domestic Abusers
• World Literature Today Top 40 [2001] (Ranked: 1961)

Year In Review:

In 2023, Out of 4 Votes: 75.00% Annoying
In 2022, Out of 3 Votes: 0% Annoying
In 2021, Out of 7 Votes: 57.14% Annoying
In 2020, Out of 3 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
In 2019, Out of 3 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
In 2018, Out of 55 Votes: 52.73% Annoying
In 2017, Out of 4 Votes: 100% Annoying
In 2016, Out of 9 Votes: 55.56% Annoying
In 2015, Out of 15 Votes: 66.67% Annoying