HISTORICAL EVENTS: Riots in South Africa. Gorbachev General Secretary in USSR.

1986.

LITERARY CONTEXT: Walcott: Collected Poems.

HISTORICAL EVENTS: GorbachevReagan summit.

1987.

AUTHOR'S LIFE: The Enigma of Arrival.

LITERARY CONTEXT: Morrison: Beloved.

Levi: The Drowned and the Saved.

1988.

LITERARY CONTEXT: Rushdie: The Satanic Verses.

HISTORICAL EVENTS: Gorbachev announces big troop reductions. Ben.a.z.ir Bhutto Prime Minister of Pakistan.

1989.

AUTHOR'S LIFE: A Turn in the South.

LITERARY CONTEXT: Marquez: The General in his Labyrinth.

HISTORICAL EVENTS: Collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe. Fall of the Berlin Wall. Tiananmen Square ma.s.sacre in China.

1990.

AUTHOR'S LIFE: India: A Million Mutinies Now. Knighthood for Services to Literature.

LITERARY CONTEXT: Updike: Rabbit at Rest.

Walcott: Omeros.

HISTORICAL EVENTS: Nelson Mandela released from jail after 27 years' imprisonment. German reunification. John Major becomes Prime Minister in UK. Attempted coup by Islamic fundamentalists in Trinidad.

1991.

LITERARY CONTEXT: M. Amis: Time's Arrow.

Okri: The Famished Road.

HISTORICAL EVENTS: Gulf War. Yeltsin President of Russia. USSR disbanded.

1992.

HISTORICAL EVENTS: Bill Clinton elected US President. Civil war in former Yugoslavia.

1993.

AUTHOR'S LIFE: Wins the first David Cohen Prize for Literature.

HISTORICAL EVENTS: Israel hands over West Bank and Jericho to Palestinians. Storming of White House, Moscow.

1994.

AUTHOR'S LIFE: A Way in the World.

LITERARY CONTEXT: h.e.l.ler: Closing Time.

HISTORICAL EVENTS: Mandela and ANC sweep to victory in South African elections. Rwandan ma.s.sacres. Russian military action against Chechen republic.

1996.

AUTHOR'S LIFE: Wife Patricia Naipaul dies (3 February); marries Nadira Khannum Alvi (15 April).

LITERARY CONTEXT: Marquez: News of a Kidnapping.

1997.

AUTHOR'S LIFE: Letters.

LITERARY CONTEXT: Bellow: The Actual.

Roth: American Pastoral.

Roy: The G.o.d of Small Things.

HISTORICAL EVENTS: Tony Blair elected Prime Minister in UK (first Labour government since 1979). Princess Diana is killed in a car accident in Paris.

1998.

AUTHOR'S LIFE: Beyond Belief.

LITERARY CONTEXT: Morrison: Paradise.

Pamuk: My Name is Red.

HISTORICAL EVENTS: Northern Ireland Referendum accepts the Good Friday Agreement. Clinton orders air strikes against Iraq.

1999.

AUTHOR'S LIFE: Between Father and Son: Family Letters.

LITERARY CONTEXT: Coetzee: Disgrace.

HISTORICAL EVENTS: Serbs attack ethnic Albanians in Kosovo; US leads NATO in bombing of Belgrade.

2000.

AUTHOR'S LIFE: Reading and Writing: A Personal Account.

LITERARY CONTEXT: Ishiguro: When We Were Orphans.

Smith: White Teeth.

HISTORICAL EVENTS: Milosevic's regime in the former Yugoslavia collapses. George W. Bush is elected President of the US. Putin becomes Russian President. Palestinian intifadah.

2001.

AUTHOR'S LIFE: Half a Life; n.o.bel Prize.

LITERARY CONTEXT: McEwan: Atonement.

Franzen: The Corrections.

HISTORICAL EVENTS: Al-Qaeda terrorist attacks of 9/11. US and allied military action against the Taliban in Afghanistan.

2002.

AUTHOR'S LIFE: The Writer and the World: Essays.

LITERARY CONTEXT: Martel: Life of Pi.

HISTORICAL EVENTS: Guantanamo Bay detention camps established by Bush administration.

2003.

AUTHOR'S LIFE: Literary Occasions: Essays.

LITERARY CONTEXT: Atwood: Oryx and Crake.

Adichie: Purple Hibiscus.