V. S. Naipaul has always faced the challenges of "fitting one civilization to another." In A Writer's People , he takes us into this process of creative and intellectual assimilation, which has shaped both his writing and his life.

Naipaul discusses the writers to whom he was exposed early on—Derek Walcott, Gustave Flaubert, and his father, among them—and his first encounters with literary culture. He illuminates the ways in which the writings of Gandhi, Nehru, and other Indian writers both reveal and conceal the authors themselves and their nation. And he brings the same scrutiny to bear on his own life: his early years in Trinidad; the empty spaces in his family history; his ever-evolving reactions to the more complicated India he would encounter for the first time at age thirty.

英国作家奈保尔（Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul）,1932年生于靠近特立尼达西班牙港的chaguanas。他家是来自北印度的移民,祖父供职于一家甘蔗种植园,父亲是一名记者。

1950年,18岁的奈保尔获政府奖学金,来到英国牛津大学专攻文学。大学期间,他的小说屡屡遭到退稿。父亲的帮助和鼓励使得他矢志不移的坚持创作。1953年,他的第一部小说 出版了。这年,他的父亲去世。奈波尔出版的《父子之间》收入了两人的往来书信。1953年成为自由赚稿人。1954-1956年,担任BBC“加勒比之声”的栏目主持人。

1990年,他得到英国皇室的封爵,1993年,成为英国戴维-柯翰文学奖的首位获奖者,2001年,获得诺贝尔文学奖。

奈保尔的作品主要由长篇小说和短篇故事构成,也包括一些记实性作品。他是一位世界主义作家,他认为这源于自己无根的状态。他对于特立尼达文化和精神的贫乏感到悲哀,他感到与印度的疏离,也不能认同与支持英格兰这个前殖民势力的传统价值。另外,他还批评印度尼西亚、伊朗、马来西亚、巴基斯坦等非阿拉伯国家中的穆斯林原教旨主义……总之,阴郁、苦涩、辛酸、对社会黑暗毫不妥协,这就是奈保尔的风格。