Profiles: Heroes, Role Models and Pioneers of Trinidad and Tobago - by Nasser Khan

184 its Editor-in-Chief in 1993. In 1987 she was awarded the Humming Bird Medal Silver. VIDIA S. NAIPAUL (1932-2018) N aipaul is included, even though he became “famous” while not in Trinidad and Tobago, for the influence he would have had on at least one generation of writers and thinkers. Naipaul attended University College, Oxford University, England. After his graduation in 1953, he worked at the British Broadcasting Corporation as a broadcaster and joint editor of the programme Caribbean voices. In 1957, he wrote his first novel, The Mystic Masseur . Since then both his fiction and non-fiction works have been widely read worldwide. For instance Naipaul’s fourth novel, A House for Mr. Biswas , depicting the life and times of an East Indian family of Chaguanas, has been ranked as one of the best novels of the 20 th century. Naipaul’s work has been the subject of controversy for what has been interpreted as his negative portrayal of life in the Caribbean. Some of his best known works include: Miguel Street (1959); A House for Mr. Biswas (1961); The Mimic Men (1967); In A Free State (1971); A Bend in The River (1979); The Enigma of Arrival (1987); Magic Seeds (2004) • 1970 - Trinidad & Tobago Humming Bird Medal Gold • 1989 - Trinidad & Tobago Trinity Cross • 1990 - Knighted by Queen Elizabeth II of England • 2001 - Nobel Prize for Literature SAMUEL SELVON (1923-1994) S amuel Selvon began his writing career as a reporter for the Trinidad Guardian newspaper after World War II, but it was his novels that made him famous.