Naipaul's biography may scoop richest prize in non-fiction

Thu, May 15 08:15 PM

A shocking biography of Nobel laureate Sir V S Naipaul, exposing his cruelty towards his first wife, is tipped to win its author Britain's richest prize in non-fiction writing.

'The World is What it is: The Authorised Biography of V S Naipaul' heads the shortlist for this year's Samuel Johnson prize, worth 30,000 pounds.

Five other books in the fray include an investigation of a Victorian murder and a study of crows, but it is Patrick French's biography of Naipaul that is causing waves in literary circles.

Naipaul's brutal treatment of his first wife, Pat, is particularly harrowing in the biography. He put her down constantly, consorted with prostitutes and had a 24-year-long, sexually violent affair with a woman from Argentina.

His wife was in remission from cancer when he admitted to New Yorker magazine in 1994 that he had been "a great prostitute man".

In French's book, he says: "I think that consumed. She had all the relapses and everything after that she suffered. It could be said that I killed her... I feel a little bit that way."

His wife died in 1996 and the day after her cremation he welcomed into the marital home, not his long-suffering mistress, but a Pakistani journalist whom he had recently met.

The pair married two months later. French will be vying with Mark Cocker, whose book 'Crow Country' grew out of his fascination with the birds and Kate Summerscale, whose 'The Suspicions of Mr Whicher: Or the Murder at Road Hill House' examines a killing that inspired the stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

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