To mark the August 17 birthday of Trinidad and Tobago’s only Nobel Prize winner so far, Friends of Mr Biswas opens up a new perspective on the writer tomorrow, exploring his work under the wide-ranging topic “Mothering”. Naipaul’s interconnected relationships between his actual mother , Mother Trinidad, Mother England and Mother India will be the complex and fascinating motif of the event.
Hosted by Friends of Mr Biswas, the memorial will take place on Thursday at NALIS in Port-of-Spain from 5pm, bringing together writers, actors, dance and music artistes, academics, literary critics as well as blood relatives in admiration of one of the country’s most provocative and stimulating literary figures.
Naipaul, who was born in Trinidad on August 17, 1932, was one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. His novels, travel writing and essays explored themes of colonialism, migration, identity, displacement and the complexities of life in post-colonial societies.
His Trinidadian upbringing remained an important influence on his writing, with works including A House for Mr Biswas, The Mystic Masseur, Miguel Street and The Loss of Eldorado, drawing on the people, communities and social realities and the unwritten history of the country that seeded him.
The annual memorial has become part of the local literary calendar, providing an opportunity not only to remember Naipaul but also to examine his strict descriptions of what he saw and felt, and chastening prophecies of what he saw coming.
Friends of Mr Biswas has staged the memorial in collaboration with Nalis, Iere Theatre Productions and other cultural groups and academic institutions over the years, helping to keep discussions surrounding Naipaul’s contribution to Caribbean literature alive.
For a country that produced one of the English-speaking Caribbean’s most celebrated writers, the memorial also offers an opportunity to consider Naipaul’s complicated relationship with Trinidad and Tobago and the ways his writing continues to shape perceptions of the Caribbean.
As readers marked his 94th birthday on Monday, Thursday’s memorial will provide another occasion to return to his work, revisit his ideas and consider the place of his literary legacy in Trinidad and Tobago and beyond.
