V. S. Naipaul

Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul, won an Open National Scholarship from Queen's Royal College and went on to become a world famous novelist, winning the Nobel Laureate for Literature in the year 2001. He obtained his Bachelor of Arts from University College, Oxford in 1953, and four years later published his first book The Mystic Masseur, made into film by Ismail Merchant in 2001. In 1961 he published A House for Mr. Biswas, a novel autobiographical in its nature. Some of his other works include The Guerillas(1975),The Middle Passage(1962) A Bend in the River(1979), Among the Believers(1981), The Enigma of Arrival (1987), India: A Million Mutinies Now(1990),Beyond Belief(1998) and Half a Life(2001). In 1990 he was knighted by H.M. Queen Elizabeth and in 1992 Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul was awarded the Trinity Cross for services to the nation.