"B. Wordsworth" is Trinidadian-British author V.S. Naipaul's short story first published in 1959 in his acclaimed collection entitled Miguel Street. The short story is told from Naipaul's point of view, and explores his relationship (in the story, he portrays himself as a downtrodden poet and calls himself B. Wordsworth) with an exceptionally curious child. The boy and poet meet one day and bond over their love of bees, which they frequently watch. After the two grow close, B. Wordsworth offers to sell the boy a poem because he believes the boy to be a poet. The boy’s mother, however, promptly refuses the offer and B. Wordsworth is left dejected. Still, the duo grows even closer to each other and their friendship blossoms. They remain friends for years, but one day, the boy discovers the truth: that B. Wordsworth liked to tell tall tales of his own accomplishments and plans. And after that, the boy leaves B. Wordsworth alone for the rest of his life, leaving the poet alone forever and just like he never existed–which is the thing he feared most in his life.
When V.S. Naipaul began to shop Miguel Street around to publishers, many bristled at the prospect of publishing the first work of an unknown Trinidadian author. A famous publisher named André Deutsch, however, felt differently and gave Naipaul his first chance, publishing Miguel Street. The results, to say the least, were marvelous, as the collection earned overwhelmingly positive reviews and launched Naipaul's career. In the review of the collection, for instance, the New York Times wrote that "The sketches are written lightly, so that tragedy is understated and comedy is overstated, yet the ring of truth always prevails."
Naipaul died in 2018 at age 85 in London in the United Kingdom having published over thirty works over the course of his long and illustrious career. Although he wrote his work in English, Naipaul became best-known for his early novels set in Trinidad and Tobago, which is where he was born. His stories, and "B. Wordsworth" is no exception, reinforce the duality in his life: he knew and grew up in Trinidad and Tobago (and used his experiences in the country to provide depth to many of his works), but spent much of his life in the United Kingdom.
