Seepersad Naipaul

Born to a poor Indian family in rural Trinidad, one generation away from indenture, Seepersad Naipaul largely educated himself.^[1] Sent to live with extended family, he would help rear goats and cows in the mornings, and then walk to school without shoes.^[2] He was only allowed to attend elementary school;^[3] his brother was sent to work in the cane fields for 8 cents a day, while his sister remained illiterate.^[4]

Though Naipaul was only in school a few years, he taught himself to read and write, and wished to become a writer. His role models were O. Henry and William Somerset Maugham.^[3]

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Despite his limited formal education, Naipaul became the Central correspondent for the Trinidad Guardian, where he was the paper's first Indo-Trinidadian journalist.^[2] He was hired as part of an attempt to modernise the T&T Guardian, which was primarily read by the white urban elite at the time.^[2]

Naipaul's journalism was noted for his acute observations of Trinidadian society and his prose, which "boldly creolised reporting styles and showed his sons the possibilities of combining fiction and non-fiction".^[5] Professor Aaron Eastley, of Brigham Young University in Utah, describes Naipaul's as "a voice that was creative, often sensational, and certainly dramatic". Guardian sales reportedly rose during his employ.^[2]

Naipaul's first book, Gurudeva and Other Indian Tales, is a collection of linked short stories that was first published in Trinidad and Tobago in 1943. Like most Caribbean writers at the time, Naipaul had to self-publish. Only 1000 copies of the pamphlet were published and it became highly sought after.^[6][7]

The elder Naipaul wanted his son V. S. Naipaul (or "Vido", as he called him) to try to get his short story collection published in London, hoping any money it earned would help the family escape from poverty in Trinidad. After he had a heart attack, his daughter Kamla also wrote to Vidia, urging him to send an encouraging letter to their father and to demand he find a publisher for the book to save Seepersad's life.^[8] The book would not be published in London for two more decades.^[9]

In 1976, 23 years after the elder Naipaul's death, the collection was re-edited and republished as The Adventures of Gurudeva, and Other Stories (Andre Deutsch). V. S. Naipaul opted to omit some stories for this second edition, including a story in which his father satirised himself through a character called Gopi.^[10][7] According to publisher and Caribbean scholar Jeremy Poynting, V. S. declined the option to republish the book a second time.^[11]

Despite its limited time in print, Gurudeva and Other Indian Tales has been called "a landmark in Indian diasporic fiction" by N. Jayaram^[3] and "a book of rare quality" by Patrick French.^[12]

Though out of print for several decades, Gurudeva and Other Indian Tales is due to be republished in 2025, as part of Peepal Tree Press' Caribbean Modern Classics series. The new edition will include new stories, originally broadcast on the BBC World Service's Caribbean Voices programme or published in Caribbean periodicals, as well as those stories removed from the 1976 second edition.^[10]

Letters from Seepersad Naipaul are featured in Between Father and Son: Family Letters (edited by Gillon Aitken), which collects correspondence between V. S. Naipaul and his family, dating from around the time Vidia won a scholarship to Oxford University until after the older Naipaul's death. The book was published in 1999, and extracted in The New Yorker.^[8]

In a review of the book, James Woods notes Seepersad Naipaul's dedication to his seven children and the combination of humour and pathos in his letters. Though the elder Naipaul describes feeling "trapped" in his day job, which does not let him write as much as he would like, he takes joy in his son's accomplishments.^[13]

Edited by Aaron Eastley, Brinsley Samaroo, Kenneth Ramchand and Nivedita Misra, Seepersad Naipaul, Amazing Scenes: Selected Journalism 1928–1953 (Leeds: Peepal Tree Press, 2024) covers 25 years of Naipaul's columns and articles in the T&T Guardian. Naipaul was initially charged with reporting on the lives of the East Indians on the island. The articles often reflect on topical issues of the day but are notable for their humour.^[14]

The incidents described in book often highlight the parallels between the elder Naipaul's career in journalism and V. S. Naipaul's character of Mohan Biswas in his novel A House for Mr Biswas.^[14] It also includes Naipaul's writings on the infamous "Kali cult" incident.^[6][15]

In one article, written in 1933, Naipaul describes a rabies epidemic infecting local animals and the superstitious owners who, rather than vaccinate their animals, sacrifice them to avoid "the wrath of Kali".^[16] Shortly after, he receives a threatening letter. The letter warns him of a deadly curse, which can only be undone if he sacrifices a goat to Kali Mai. He initially responds with humour, when he writes: "Briefly and explicitly, I say bunkum."^[17]

Despite this initial flippancy, Naipaul was eventually persuaded by his friends and family to perform the sacrifice of a goat in 1933. He was reportedly distressed that he had been forced to do something he did not believe in and, according to his son V. S. Naipaul and others, this triggered a mental breakdown a few months later.^[18][19]

On 2 February 1953, after their father had a heart attack, Kamla Naipaul wrote to her brother Vidia, who was still in Oxford. She demanded that, in order to save their father's life and the lives of their siblings, he send an encouraging letter to Seepersad urgently, and that he find a London publisher for The Adventures of Gurudeva, and Other Stories.^[8]

Seepersad Naipaul hoped the sale of his book would alleviate the family's financial difficulties at the time. In response, V. S. sent a letter discussing author Joyce Cary, who found success in his late 40s. Unfortunately, the elder Naipaul died of a heart attack in October that year, aged just 46. The Adventures of Gurudeva was not republished until 1976.^[15][8][13]