Shiva Naipaul

Shiva Naipaul (1945-1985), younger brother of the Nobel laureate V. S. Naipaul, was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad.

He was educated at Queen’s Royal College and St Mary’s College in Trinidad and at University College, Oxford, obtaining a degree in Chinese studies. He married in 1967 and had one son.

He wrote both fiction and non-fiction, the most well-known of the latter being North of South, the story of his remarkable journey through the new liberated Africa.

Shiva Naipaul won the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize and the Winifred Holtby Prize. He died in 1985 aged only forty.

Works

• North of South
• Black and White
• Fireflies
• A Hot Country
• Beyond the Dragon’s Mouth: Stories and Pieces
• The Chip Chip Gatherers