2001 Nobel Prize in Literature

The 2001 Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded to V. S. Naipaul. The prize was announced by the Swedish Academy in Stockholm on 11 October 2001.

The citation

The citation reads: "for having united perceptive narrative and incorruptible scrutiny in works that compel us to see the presence of suppressed histories".

The laureate

V. S. Naipaul was born in 1932 in Chaguanas, Trinidad and Tobago.

Why it matters

The Trinidad-born, British-based author wrote novels and travel books including A House for Mr Biswas and A Bend in the River. He was knighted in 1990.

The prize

The prize is worth 10 million Swedish kronor. It will be presented at a ceremony in Stockholm on 10 December, the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite whose will founded the prizes in 1895.