Patrick French defends his biography of V S Naipaul

NAIPAUL'S BARE-ALL: French's biography is considered to be a no-holds-barred look at V S Naipaul's life.

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Keywords: The World Is What It Is, Patrick French

New Delhi: Author Patrick French, now the authorized biographer of V S Naipaul was in the capital for a special reading of his book.

The content of the biography The World is What it is, could well be the closest that you can know how V S Naipaul sees the world, coloured in his vision of extremes.

It is considered to be a biography that leaves diplomacy aside and bares all, including Naipaul's personal life. But author Patrick French would prefer that people react to just the book and not the reports on it.

"A lot of the reporting on the book so far has been on the personal scandal in Naipaul's life. The way I see, the book is on a great late 20th-century writer,” Patrick French said. “My hope is that people read the book rather than just the news reports on the book."

It’s not confirmed whether it is a fact or a rumour, but there were even reports that the grand old man himself has been upset with the book. But French refuted such claims.

"I don't think so, he never had any objections, he remained detached from the publishing process,” French said. “I don’t expect him to read the book but he allowed me free reign, access to his archives and he stuck to that all through five years of my research and writing."

It's time the dust settles and one enjoys a book where the biographer and the author have both kept their promises to be true to the art of writing facts and avoiding any bias.

With inputs from Suchetna Ray