That's what one of the women we spoke to said about the controversial author, who recently declared women writers to be inferior to him, and went on to deride English novelist Jane Austen for 'sentimental concerns'

Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul's love for courting controversy is legendary.

The Trinidadian-British novelist of Indian descent, better known as VS Naipaul, once famously described post-colonial countries as 'half-baked societies'.


V S Naipaul

Another time, he compared the 'calamitous effect' of Islam to colonialism, and on a separate occasion deemed that 40 years ago, Indians were not intellectual enough to read his books, besides judging novelist EM Forster and economist John Maynard Keynes to be 'homosexual exploiters of the powerless'.

This time around, the focus of Naipaul's scorn is women writers.

In an interview at the Royal Geographic Society, earlier this week, the Nobel Laureate came off as decidedly sexist, when he was quoted as saying, "I read a piece of writing and within a paragraph or two I know whether it is by a woman or not. I think [it is] unequal to me."

The 78-year-old attributed this presumed failing of women writers to 'sentimentality, the narrow view of the world'. "And inevitably for a woman, she is not a complete master of a house, so that comes over in her writing too."

Sir Vidia, as he is also known, praised one-time friend and editor, Diana Athill, often credited for shaping his work during his days as a struggling writer, for being 'so good as a taster and editor', but churning out 'feminine tosh' when she took to writing herself.

The caustic writer, knighted in 1989, seemed to hold special contempt for celebrated author Jane Austen saying he "couldn't possibly share her sentimental ambitions, her sentimental sense of the world".

With reactions to Naipaul's comments ranging from outrage and disgust to dismissal, we decided to ask Indian women, who make a career from words, what they think of Sir Vidia's supposedly misogynist tirade.

What women authors have to say

Shobhaa De, author and columnist:
Talent has no gender. Naipaul has fed off controversy all his life. He is an 'agent provocateur' and a brilliant one at that. He is entitled to his rather unfortunate take on women writers... ignore him!
Talent has no gender. If he hits the headlines by rubbishing Jane Austen, does it take away from Austen's gift to enchant readers? Naipaul sounds like a petulant, insecure old man with an enormous chip on his shoulder.
But he IS a genius! I am a great admirer. And shall remain one.
His jaundiced view about the writing abilities of women reveals his deep hatred for the female voice a voice that is being increasingly heard across the world. I consider it his loss. Of course we are sentimental and proud of it! The scary part of this controversy is that Naipaul probably means every word!
He sounds like a pretty miserable, loopy eccentric, who has lost the plot completely so out of sync with modern thinking! So medieval in his outlook. Bechara Naipaul. All I can say is, "Get well soon!"