VS Naipaul with his wife Nadira: ‘Terribly happy’

London, Jan. 31: The sex life of V.S. Naipaul and especially whether he abuses his women appears to be arousing much more interest in London and New York than the Nobel Prize winner’s books.

Today, for example, there is a long article in the Daily Mail which has been provoked by a letter to the New York Review of Books written by Margaret Murray, Naipaul’s Anglo-Argentine mistress of 24 years.

Margaret was discarded by Naipaul in 1996 when he chose to marry the Pakistani journalist, Nadira Khannum Alvi, after the death from cancer of his loyal and long suffering first wife, Patricia (Pat), an Englishwoman whom he had met at Oxford.

In his much acclaimed biography of Naipaul, The World Is What It Is, Patrick French, who was accorded exceptional access both to the author’s papers and the diaries that had been kept by Pat, claimed that Margaret did not mind being abused by her lover. In fact, the couple rather enjoyed a spot of sado-masochism.

The biography also said that Naipaul did not bother to read many of the letters written by Margaret.

However, in a response to a review of the biography by Ian Buruma that has appeared in the New York Review of Books, Margaret, writing from her home in Buenos Aires, has corrected some errors, notably “Vidia says I didn’t mind the abuse. I certainly did mind.”

She explains: “The majority of my letters to Vidia were written because he had a habit of saying, ‘please write me a little letter.’ If he chose to leave them unopened, that was his business.”

Margaret also confirms: “I did not co-operate with Patrick French’s book; nor have I read it.”

Nor, it is claimed, has Naipaul.

Margaret Murray

Using Margaret’s letter as the basis of its vituperative article, the Daily Mail today described Naipaul, whom it has never much liked, as “bigoted, arrogant, vicious, racist, a woman-beating misogynist and sado-masochist”.

Naipaul set off for Africa and is now back at Dairy Cottage, his red-brick home in a Wiltshire hamlet, calmly writing about the journey for his next book, the paper states.

“Now 76, his every daily need is supplied by his energetic second wife Nadira, 55,” the Mail says

Not above engaging in a bit of mischief, the Daily Mail speculates about Naipaul’s current sex life.

“Now, Naipaul is deeply into his relationship with Nadira. Mindful of what we now know about his sexual predilections, the literary world’s curiosity about the inner workings of this marriage to the woman blamed for breaking a number of the author’s lifelong friendships is understandable. Does he abuse and beat her as well?”

It apparently got an interview with Nadira: “At home in Dairy Cottage this week, Nadira was to be found perching her curvaceous figure on a purple gym exercise ball in the tidy cream-carpeted sitting room, while Naipaul, still in a black towelling dressing gown at midday, worked in another room. She planted her feet firmly on the floor and stood up very straight and serious, tossing her shoulder-length hair. ‘Do I look like the kind of woman who takes abuse?’ she inquires in a voice that requires no answer.

“‘Not at all. I’m very happy — terribly happy with my life. There are other writers who have more sordid lives— why focus on my husband? Everyone has an experience, everybody does it.’”

According to Nadira, Naipaul did not sanction French’s manuscript although that has been the impression that has been given so far, not least by French who has said he sent his manuscript to his subject but did not receive any requests for corrections.

According to the Mail, “_though Naipaul is said to have approved the manuscript of the biography before publication, Nadira insists that he has never clapped eyes on it. ‘My husband hasn’t read it. He will read it one day,’ she declares. ‘It will be in his own time and in his own way. Then he will speak his mind. At the moment, he doesn’t give a damn. He doesn’t give a toss. I have read it. It’s more like a salacious newspaper than a biography. I don’t give a damn either. Patrick French should stick to writing about dead people._ But the book has changed nothing in our lives. In fact it’s better, much better, absolutely better.’”

Patrick French was not available for comment.