V. S. Naipaul: The Art of Fiction (The Paris Review Interviews, Vol. 4)
V.S. Naipaul (copyright Getty)
As Naipul and his work shows us, the author's perspective or voice is not just about style. It's also about place and history. And while Naipul is right that an English -- or American -- writer is born into a great knowledge of origins and culture, I'd venture to suggest that many new and emerging American writers would benefit from revisiting that history/culture. If you're a writer having trouble with "voice," I suggest bringing that historical and cultural knowledge to bear on it:
Interviewer:
Do you think it is crucial to your function and material as a writer to know where you came from and what made you what you are?
Naipaul:
When you're like me -- born in a place where you don't know the history, and no one tells you the history, and the history, in fact, doesn't exist, or in fact exists only in documents -- when you are born like that, you have to learn about where you came from. It takes a lot of time. You can't simply write about the world as thought it is all there, all granted to you. If you are French or an English writer, you are born to a great knowledge of your origins and your culture. When you are born like me, in an agricultural colony far away, you have to learn everything. The writing has been a process of inquiry and learning for me.
Naipul's work includes A House of Mr. Biswas (1961), India: A Million Mutinies Now (1990), and Beyond Belief: Islamic Excursions among the Converted Peoples (1998). His interview with The Paris Review was published in 1998.
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