Portrait of VS Naipaul unveiled in National Portrait Gallery

In a rare honour, a life-size portrait of celebrated Indian-origin Nobel Prize winning writer VS Naipaul has been unveiled at the National Portrait Gallery in the UK.

Paul Emsley, the artist entrusted with executing the delicate commission, sat Naipaul down on his folding walking stick in the garden of the author's home in Wiltshire and allowed "light and dark to come across his face as a metaphor for life and death."

Naipaul told Emsley's wife, Susane, when she asked his opinion at the launch: "I love it. I have always needed time to think and this captures that very nicely. I am very honoured to have been singled out to be painted for the gallery," Naipaul said who is a British novelist and essayist of Indo-Trinidadian descent.

Naipaul, who came to Oxford from Trinidad in the early 1950s, said, "It has been a long and at times very difficult journey to succeed as a writer in this country, but it is the only journey I felt I could make and I am glad to keep on looking and learning and writing."

Painting Naipaul was Emsley's prize for coming first in the 2007 BP Portrait Award but some feared the artist was being handed a poisoned challice.

This is because Naipaul does have a reputation for being nasty and even cantankerous if he feels his visitor is not sufficiently informed about his books.