'Indian' is a word which our English-speaking forebears have scattered rather too casually about the globe. V.S. Naipaul is an 'East Indian', but not from the Dutch East Indies; nor is he an Anglo-Indian, a Red Indian or an Amerindian. He is of Hindu stock, born and bred in the West Indies. His grandfather went to Trinidad from Uttar Pradesh, as an indentured labourer; his father became a reporter for the Trinidad Guardian and a writer of short stories - 'not for money or fame (there was no local market), but out of some private need,' writes Vidiadhar Naipaul now. 'Not formally educated, a nibbler of books rather than a reader, my father worshipped writing and writers. He made the vocation of the writer seem the noblest in the world; and I decided to be that noble thing.'

LRB 3 May 1984 | PDF Download