Elaeis guineensis originally grew in West Africa. The southern coast of Nigeria was originally called the Palm oil coast by the first Europeans who arrived there and traded in the commodity. This area was later renamed the Bight of Biafra. In traditional African medicine different parts of the plant are used as laxative and diuretic, as a poison antidote, as a cure for gonorrhea, menorrhagia, and bronchitis, to treat headaches and rheumatism, to promote healing of fresh wounds and treat skin infections. In Malaysia, the first plantations were mostly established and operated by British plantation owners, such as Sime Darby and Boustead,
The World Is What It Is in 1996. The biography has been extensively reviewed: the reviewers include Paul Theroux, who wrote an earlier book about Naipaul. The biography was selected by the editors of the "New York Times Book Review" as one of the "Times"' "10 Best Books of 2008". It won the 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award in Biography, and the British literary award the Hawthornden Prize. 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