Home » Trinidad and Tobago » Shiva Naipaul

Shiva Naipaul

Biography

Shiva Naipaul was born in Woodbrook, Port of Spain, Trinidad in 1945. He was the younger brother of V S Naipaul. After school in Trinidad, he followed his brother to Oxford where he studied politics and psychology and then Chinese. He took up writing immediately after Oxford and had success with his first novel, Fireflies. He was a keen traveller and wrote about his travels in North of South: An African Journey. He also wrote about the Jonestown Massacre in Black and White (US: Journey to Nowhere: A New World Tragedy). He died of a heart attack in 1985. He has been compared, usually unfavourably, to his brother.

Other links

Shiva Naipaul
Shiva Naipaul’s African Journey

Bibliography

1970 Fireflies
1973 The Chip-Chip Gatherers
1978 North of South: An African Journey
1980 Black and White (US: Journey to Nowhere: A New World Tragedy)
1983 A Hot Country (US: Love and Death in a Hot Country)
1984 Beyond the Dragon’s Mouth: Stories and Pieces
1986 An Unfinished Journey
1995 A Man of Mystery and Other Stories