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His father was an aspiring, self-taught novelist whose ambitions were killed by lack of opportunity; the son was determined to leave his homeland as soon as he could. In later years, he would repeatedly reject his birthplace as little more than a plantation. In Pic: V S Naipaul (2nd L) looks over his Nobel prize for literature with Medicine winner Sir Paul Nurse (L) and Economics winners George Akerlof and A. Michael Spence (R) at Stockholm's Konserthuset, after receiving it from Sweden's King Carl Gustaf on December 10, 2001. (Source: REUTERS)