Nadira, Lady Naipaul (born Nadira Khannum Alvi; 1953), is a Pakistani journalist and the widow of novelist Sir
V. S. Naipaul
Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul (; 17 August 1932 – 11 August 2018) was a Trinidadian-born British writer of works of fiction and nonfiction in English. He is known for his comic early novels set in Trinidad, his bleaker novels of alienati ...
.
Biography
She was born in
Mombasa
Mombasa ( ; ) is a coastal city in southeastern Kenya along the Indian Ocean. It was the first capital of the British East Africa, before Nairobi was elevated to capital city status. It now serves as the capital of Mombasa County. The town is ...
, Kenya. At the age of 16 she married an engineer, Agha Hashim, who was 26 years her senior. They had two daughters, Gul Zehra (aka Naeema Hashim) and Sumar Zahra, who lived with various relatives after the marriage ended. Nadira's second marriage was to Iqbal Shah, by whom she had a daughter Maleeha, whom V. S. Naipaul later adopted, and a son, Nadir Shah.
She worked as a journalist for ''
The Nation
''The Nation'' is an American liberal biweekly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper t ...
'', a
Pakistani newspaper, for ten years before meeting V.S. Naipaul. He became her third husband when they married in 1996, two months after the death of Naipaul's first wife, Patricia (formerly Patricia Hale).
[{{cite news, url=https://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/access/84193810.html?dids=84193810:84193810&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&type=current&date=Oct+12%2C+2001&author=MARJORIE+MILLER&pub=Los+Angeles+Times&desc=The+World%3B+V.S.+Naipaul+Receives+Nobel+for+Literature&pqatl=google, Marjorie Miller, "V. S. Naipaul Receives Nobel for Literature", ''Los Angeles Times'', October 12, 2001]
Lady Naipaul's brother,
Ameer Faisal Alavi, a
two-star general
An officer of two-star rank is a senior commander in many of the armed services holding a rank described by the NATO code of OF-7. The term is also used by some armed forces which are not NATO members. Typically, two-star officers hold the rank ...
in the
Pakistan Army, was assassinated in 2008.
[Mohammad Asghar and Munawer Azeem]
"Gunmen Kill Retired General in Rawalpindi Shooting"
''Dawn'', 19 November 2008
References
{{Reflist
External links
{{authority control
{{DEFAULTSORT:Naipaul, Nadira
Pakistani women journalists
English people of Pakistani descent
Kenyan people of Pakistani descent
Kenyan emigrants to Pakistan
Living people
1953 births
Naipaul family
People from Mombasa
Wives of knights
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