So in this 20 year old article by one unheard-of V.S. Naipaul he calls himself “the greatest living English language novelist”?
Humility. Must be a nice experience.
“On October 30, 1990, V S. Naipaul, considered by many to be the greatest living English language novelist...”
This is not his own opinion of himself, but rather the opinion of the person indroducting V.S. Naipaul as a speaker. Naipaul won the Nobel prize for literature. It was a shock at the time, because he was not an anti-western author. There were a lot of “This can’t be!” remarks on the day it was announced.
VS Naipaul is very well known.
And he is not calling himself the greatest.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V._S._Naipaul
It is a very good article IF YOU READ IT.
City Journal is running a retrospective of this article because it is so good, and so timely still today.