His level of perception is of the highest

Martin Amis

"At long last! Naipaul gets Nobel," was the headline in The Asian Age.

In its lead editorial, The Indian Express said that the writer in his works "uncovered forgotten layers of history... (and) found the narrative style and simple language to recount them in."

Damning criticism

The paper said he had an uncontested claim "to being the greatest living writer of English prose".

The Nobel has gone to a man who does not flinch from making enemies

John Casey, Cambridge University

The press also made note of Naipaul's damning criticism of Indian society in many of his works.

"The man who loves to wound civilisation," read a headline in The Statesman.

In the UK, the award was greeted with enthusiasm by many academics and those in the literary establishment.

Martin Amis said he was delighted by Naipaul's win.

'Ironic'

"His level of perception is of the highest, and his prose has become the perfect instrument for realising those perceptions on the page," he told the Guardian.

In a comment piece for the newspaper, reviewer Maya Jaggi described Naipaul as an "ironic and controversial" choice.

She wrote: "His vision is marred, in the view of many, by bitter pessimism and prejudice masquerading as truth."

Jason Cowley, literary editor of the New Statesman, said Naipaul had produced the most "complex and demanding body of work of any postwar British writer".

'Controversy'

He added: "In the canon of contemporary British writing he is without peer: a scourge of sentimentality, irrationalism and lazy left-liberal prejudices. He deserves the prize."

"No stranger to controversy, Naipaul has never ducked the uncomfortable," wrote Paula Burnett, an English lecturer at Brunel University, in the Independent.

John Casey, a fellow of Gonville and Caius college, Cambridge, writing in the Daily Telegraph, said Naipaul had won many admirers, but few friends.

He wrote: "The Nobel Prize is often awarded with an eye to political correctness. So we should be glad, and a bit surprised that it has now gone to a man who does not flinch from making enemies."