Nobel Laureate Rips Ernest Hemingway And Henry James
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The 2001 Nobel laureate for literature, Sir V.S. Naipaul, 73, has launched an extraordinary assault upon his fellow writers, including some literary giants Americans hold dear, the BBC reported.
While he condemned Thomas Hardy, author of “Tess of the D’Urbevilles” and other Wessex novels, as “an unbearable writer” who “doesn’t know how to compose a paragraph,” he is no less severe with authors who are usually considered among the world’s literary masters.
The macho American Ernest Hemingway he dismissed, during an interview with the London Literary Review, as “so busy being an American” he “didn’t know how to compose a paragraph.”
But Sir V.S. saves the title “the worst writer in the world” for the seemingly innocuous Henry James.
James is in good company. Charles Dickens is upbraided for his “repetitiveness” and Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey brought out the worst in him.
A Trinidadian, Sir V.S., best known for “A House for Mr Biswas” and “In A Free State,” is part of the English literature movement which grew up among former British colonists.
However, he does not believe his British links have helped him. “England has not appreciated or acknowledged the work I have done,” he said.
