In Half A Life we are introduced to the compelling figure of Willie Chandran. Springing from the unhappy union of a low-caste mother and a father constantly at odds with life, Willies is naively eager to find something that will place him both in and apart from the world. Drawn to England, and to the immigrant and bohemian communities of post-war London, It is only in his first experience of love that he finally senses the possibility of fulfillment.

Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul Kt. TC (born August 17, 1932, in Chaguanas, Trinidad and Tobago), commonly known as V. S. Naipaul, is a British novelist and essayist of Indo-Trinidadian descent. He is widely considered to be one of the masters of modern English prose.[1] He has been awarded numerous literary prizes including the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize (1958), the Somerset Maugham Award (1960), the Hawthornden Prize (1964), the W. H. Smith Literary Award (1968), the Booker Prize (1971), and the David Cohen Prize for a lifetime's achievement in British Literature (1993). V. S. Naipaul was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2001, the centenary year of the award.