Nobel Prize-winning author V.S. Naipaul dies at 85

LONDON (AP):

The family of Trinidad-born British author V.S. Naipaul says the Nobel Literature laureate has died at the age of 85.

The family said in a statement late yesterday that the novelist had died at his London home.

The writer's wife, Nadira Naipaul, said he "died surrounded by those he loved, having lived a life which was full of wonderful creativity and endeavour".

Born in Trinidad on August 17, 1932, Naipaul studied at Oxford University and published his first novel, The Mystic Masseur, in 1957. He went on to write dozens of books, many dealing with colonialism and its legacy.

Naipaul was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2001 "for having united perceptive narrative and incorruptible scrutiny in works that compel us to see the presence of suppressed histories".