The British author, who won a Nobel Prize for his work that explored colonialism, has died at age 85. V S Naipaul passed away peacefully at his home in London, according to his wife Lady Naipaul. She said in a statement, “He was a giant in all that he achieved and he died surrounded by those he loved having lived a life which was full of wonderful creativity and endeavour.â€
Naipaul was born in Trinidad in 1932, and won a scholarship to attend Oxford, where he studied English. He released his first novel, The Mystic Masseur, in 1951. Ten years later he would release what is considered his masterpiece, A House for Mr Biswas. When he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, the committee noted that his books “compel us to see the presence of suppressed histories.â€