Keynote speaker: Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul is a writer and Nobel Laureate for Literature (2001). He was born in 1932 in Trinidad as the son of immigrants from the North of India. At the age of 18 he moved to England, studied at the University College at Oxford and was awarded the degree of Bachelor of Arts. Before he published his first book 'The Mystic Masseur' in 1957 he worked as a freelance writer and a broadcaster for the BBC's Caribbean Voices. V.S. Naipaul's work consists mainly of novels and short stories. His writings deal with the cultural confusion of the Third World and the problems of an outsider, a feature of his own experience as an Indian in the West Indies, a West Indian in England and a nomadic intellectual in a postcolonial world. In 1961 he published 'A House for Mr. Biswas' - that is considered by many to be one of his most outstanding novels - in which the protagonist is modeled on his father. In the 1990 published documentary book 'A Million Mutinies Now' he writes about his impression of the country of his anchestors, India. And in the books 'Among the Believers' (1981) and 'Beyond Belief' (1998) he presents critical assessments of Muslim fundamentalism in non-Arab countries such as Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia and Pakistan. V.S. Naipaul is an honorary doctor of St. Andrew's College, Columbia University and the Universities of Cambridge. In 1990 he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth.



Wednesday, April 07, 2004:

19:30 Reading at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand

Info and tickets: Phone (02) 652 0580-1, Fax (02) 652 0582, E-mail fccthai@loxinfo.co.th

Thursday, April 08, 2004:

14:00 Reading at Chulalongkorn University

Info and free tickets: Phone (02) 218 3331-5, Fax (02) 216 1299, E-mail int.off@chula.ac.th