Not that it matters, but this is not true. He was born 1947 (India’s independence) and Midnight’s children was published 1980, he won the booker in 1981. Grimus was published in 1975. Nevertheless, here is Naipaul’s quote

Literature is not like music; it isn’t for the young; there are no prodigies in writing. The knowledge or experience a writer seeks to transmit is social or sentimental; it takes time, it can take much of a man’s life, to process that experience, to understand what he has been through; and it takes great care and tact, then, for the nature of the experience not to be lost, not to be diluted by the wrong forms. The other man’s forms served the other man’s thoughts.

so well said…”A novel, I think, is partly about the contemporary and partly about the eternal, and itÂ’s the balance of that thatÂ’s difficult to achieve”

very few writers achieve that…I think Aynrand, Sartre are that kind of writers, writing novels with eternal philosophies of living which are apt even after 50 yrs after the first publication..

Nice to hear this “He started writing MidnightÂ’s Children in his mid-thirties but it took him at least five years to complete it” Gives me some hope…it takes years to write good novels..Aynrand also took years and years to write fountain head and atlas shrugged….I think good work comes from spending enough time researching and working on perfecting the novel..

Thats so modest of rushdie…”Rushdie still finds it odd that people felt the need to exaggerate the conditions of his nine-year captivity” I think its hard to lead a normal life with death sentence on your head..

so true” he admits that if he sees people reading it, his instinct is to hide behind the furniture. it embarrasses me” probably its hard to share poetry you write or novels u write with public and see their reaction in person, as most writers put their hearts and souls into their work and are never satisfied with their works and always see a scope for improvement and are pessimistic and shy about sharing their work that comes out from their hearts and souls and worry about how the world reacts to their body of work…

Good blog entry manish enjoyed reading it, thanks…

I read this interview in the Radio Times last week (clearly being shared around) and when I read that last line, I didn’t think ‘nice save Salman’, I thought ‘puke, Salman. Puke.’

… YOUR WIFE WAS MAGNIFICENT. Yes. She was born to be empress of the universe.

nice save salman

his sophisticated deconstruction of Ceylon as snot. Nice try Manish