Wednesday, June 04, 2008

Hey, What about Me?

There are no more great writers, says V S Naipaul - News, Books - The Independent: "The novelist V S Naipaul has damned the achievements of his literary contemporaries by declaring that there are 'no more great writers'.

Naipaul, 75, who won the Booker in 1971 and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2001, is said to have called this year's Hay-on-Wye Literary Festival 'unimportant and meaningless'."

4 comments:

Todd Mason said...

As opposed to all the Important Conventions and Festivals of the past. Yawn. No more inventions after 1912, either.

Get off Naipaul's lawn, Bill.

Todd Mason said...

Further con report:

He added that he had also noticed the people who go to Hay were "incredibly ugly". A spokeswoman from the festival said that Naipaul had not made an appearance at Hay in any official capacity.

While the writer, who won the Booker with In A Free State, has been widely acknowledged as one of the most significant creative minds of his age, he has also been tarred by a reputation for rudeness that has lost him some friends in the literary world.

His comments follow an authorised biography by Patrick French, which says Naipaul tormented his first wife for four decades, visited prostitutes and kept a mistress for 24 years before he suddenly abandoned her to marry another woman.

One reviewer said the book, The World Is What It Is: The Authorised Biography of V S Naipaul, "must be the frankest authorised biography of anyone alive and in possession of their senses".

Anonymous said...

screw that dothead. I'll give 'im rude.

Cap'n Bob said...

I knew I shouldn't have sent him a proof of my book for a blurb.