Naipaul's shown great integrity: Biographer

London: Some call him one of the most prolific writers of our generation but some simply can't stand him. Sir V S Naipaul has always elicited strong emotions. His biography, The World is What it is, by Patrick French attempts to tell us more about the man — his early years, his personal life, the women in his life and his relationship with India.

In an exclusive interview to CNN-IBN Patrick French talked about his book and Sir Naipaul.

CNN-IBN: According to some of the excerpts that have appeared, your book speaks quite candidly about his personal life, especially his marriage, and how his longtime mistress and his visiting prostitutes led, in someway, to the death of his first wife Patricia Hale. Do you think that is perhaps one of the controversial bits in your book?

Patrick French: There is an implication that he does admit to himself and to me, as the biographer, that he thinks it’s possible that happened. But I think one of the reasons, for the way in which it is being responded to so far, is because of the popularity in India of the idea of the hero, the writer, or a cricketer or a politician, who must be a pure idolic figure who can’t, if you like, have a human or personal side. So what I have tried to do in the book is to integrate the public figure — the novelist and writer — with the personal or the private man.

CNN-IBN: Your book also mentions the falling out that Sir V N Naipaul had with his longtime associate Paul Theroux who went on to write a not-so-sympathetic book Sir Vidia's Shadow: A Friendship Across Five Continents. Do you feel your account of Sir Vidia Naipaul is perhaps more sympathetic?

Patrick French: Well it’s sympathetic in the broad sense of understanding. I’m trying that from the inside. I think he has shown extraordinary integrity in allowing me to look at the all the material in his archive, and in speaking completely frankly and freely to me about all subjects. There was not a single thing like — Oh no, I won’t go there or I won’t discuss that. He’s talked about everything. So in a way, I am trying to explain what makes him the sort of person he is — both good and bad. But I think people will actually be astonished by a lot of what’s in the book when they realise the reality behind a lot of things that he has done and said and written.

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