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.