The World Is What It Is The World Is What It Is The World Is What It Is: The Authorized Biography of V. S. Naipaul is a biography of the Nobel Prize-winning author V. S. Naipaul by Patrick French. It was published in 2008 (by Picador in the UK and Knopf in the USA). The title is a quotation from Naipaul's book "A Bend in the River". "The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it." French deals with Naipaul's family background and his life from his birth in 1932 until his second marriage
What a Pushkin, what a son of a bitch! year: What a Pushkin, what a son of a bitch! "What a Pushkin, what a son of a bitch!" (; sometimes separated by exclamation mark instead of comma) is a catchphrase and winged word from Alexander Pushkin's correspondence with one of his friends, poet Pyotr Vyazemsky. The phrase commonly expresses a joy after finishing one's work and appears particularly in several Russian literary works. In a letter dated circa November 7 or beginning of October, 1825 Pushkin, celebrating his finished drama "Boris Godunov" wrote to Vyazemsky: That was preceded by what Pushkin wrote to Vyazemsky on July 13 of the