Talk:V. S. Naipaul

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A news item involving V. S. Naipaul was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the In the news section on 12 August 2018.

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Knight Bachelor prefix

I can see nothing in MOS:OVERLINK that would rule out linking VS Naipaul's Knight Bachelor prefix, and it is indeed the common standard across the vast majority of articles to do so. I would understand if it was the sort of prefix with both prefix and suffix, i.e. KBE/DBE, or a knighthood of a particular order (KCB/KCMG etc.) but as it's a Knight Bachelor, I believe it should stand - in fact, linking helps to clarify what order of knighthood, if any, the honour was in. Happy to be pointed to a section of the Overlink style-guide that clearly states opposite. OGBC1992 (talk) 19:49, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

There's no reason to link it behind "Sir", which would fall under MOS:EASTEREGG. The Knight Bachelor award is already linked further below in the infobox. ‑‑Neveselbert (talk · contribs · email) 20:17, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure I can see too much logic behind some of the claims in MOS:EASTEREGG, particularly the argument that "If a physical copy of the article were printed, the reference to [in this case, Naipaul being a Knight Bachelor] would be lost" as it seems to leave the door open to some incredibly clunky and poorly-written articles when piping would allow for much more smoothness. But perhaps that's a debate for a different time and a different place. Take care. OGBC1992 (talk) 07:27, 5 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

And @Fowler&fowler, apology accepted, although it was not only needlessly unkind but also irrelevant to the matter in hand. Letting bygones be bygones now though - cheerio and take care. OGBC1992 (talk) 07:30, 5 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Agent Gillon Aitken?

In "The Strange Luck of VS Naipaul" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wn_gpiE3cWA 14:43 Naipaul's literary agent Gillon Aitken is interviewed, and Naipaul's voiceover "before Gillon I had been involved with Fred for an agent [...] my earnings quadrupled or quintupled." So this seems somehow a somewhat important aspect. I am seeking alignment in Talk whether to add some on this in this page "Agents"... Erik.Ykema (talk) 20:54, 13 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Claim of Bhumihar ancestry

I have reverted the recent changes to the article introduced by Sudhanshu malviya 2000, Thatonewikipediadude and $govindsinghbabhan$ regarding Naipaul's supposed Bhumihar paternal background because:

This information is poorly sourced to trivial mentions in news articles/interviews compared to the current citation to the highly acclaimed authorized Naipaul biography by Patrick French
Also this information is likely WP:UNDUE. French, for example, devotes several pages on Naipaul's ancestry yet the only place he mentions "Bhumihar" in the whole book is in a footnote where he quotes the then lede from Naipaul's wikipedia article'!
- Fwiw, that claim was originally added to this wikipedia in this edit by an IP editor back in 2006, without citing any source; other (unsourced) edits by that editor don't engender trust. Since the unverified claim persisted in the wikipedia article for years, it created the risk of it being spread around the web and thus we need to be particularly watchful for WP:CIRCULAR citations.
Finally, some of the new sources being cited are non-specific about whether they are talking about Naipaul's maternal or paternal ancestry, while another seems to have muddled the two sides (since, as French details, it was Naipaul's maternal grandfather Kopil who hailed from a village near Gorakhpur).

(TL;DR) If someone has high quality sources for Naipaul's supposed bhumihar background, please present and discuss them here and establish consensus for any corresponding change to the article. Pinging Fylindfotberserk who has previous (partially) reverted the addition. F&f has too, but their involvement is not needed at the moment. Abecedare (talk) 00:17, 3 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for this well-researched rationale Abecedare. Savi Akal's memoir (The Naipauls of Nepaul Street) makes it pretty clear that while her paternal grandfather, Nyepal, came from India with his mother ("Mai"), she didn't know any more about his origins. Her paternal grandmother, Poolkareah, was originally from Patna.

Gorakhpur, mentioned by the IP editor back in 2006, is where Capildeo came from. Guettarda (talk) 04:05, 3 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]