A House for Mr Biswas
E764896
A House for Mr Biswas is a celebrated 1961 novel by V. S. Naipaul that follows the life-long struggle of an Indo-Trinidadian man seeking independence and self-worth through owning his own home.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| A House for Mr Biswas canonical | 2 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T8897364 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: A House for Mr Biswas Context triple: [V. S. Naipaul, notableWork, A House for Mr Biswas]
-
A.
A Suitable Boy
A Suitable Boy is a widely acclaimed epic novel by Vikram Seth that portrays post-independence Indian society through the intertwined lives and marriages of four extended families.
-
B.
A Fine Balance
A Fine Balance is a critically acclaimed novel by Rohinton Mistry that portrays the intertwined lives of four characters in 1970s India amid political turmoil and social injustice.
-
C.
Mr. and Mrs. Iyer
Mr. and Mrs. Iyer is a critically acclaimed Indian drama film directed by Aparna Sen that explores communal tension and human relationships during a fraught bus journey.
-
D.
A Passage to India
A Passage to India is a 1984 British drama film directed by David Lean, adapted from E.M. Forster’s novel about cultural tensions and colonial rule in British-occupied India.
-
E.
Heat and Dust
"Heat and Dust" is a Booker Prize–winning novel by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala that interweaves parallel stories of two Englishwomen in India, exploring themes of colonialism, desire, and cultural clash.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: A House for Mr Biswas Target entity description: A House for Mr Biswas is a celebrated 1961 novel by V. S. Naipaul that follows the life-long struggle of an Indo-Trinidadian man seeking independence and self-worth through owning his own home.
-
A.
A Suitable Boy
A Suitable Boy is a widely acclaimed epic novel by Vikram Seth that portrays post-independence Indian society through the intertwined lives and marriages of four extended families.
-
B.
A Fine Balance
A Fine Balance is a critically acclaimed novel by Rohinton Mistry that portrays the intertwined lives of four characters in 1970s India amid political turmoil and social injustice.
-
C.
Mr. and Mrs. Iyer
Mr. and Mrs. Iyer is a critically acclaimed Indian drama film directed by Aparna Sen that explores communal tension and human relationships during a fraught bus journey.
-
D.
A Passage to India
A Passage to India is a 1984 British drama film directed by David Lean, adapted from E.M. Forster’s novel about cultural tensions and colonial rule in British-occupied India.
-
E.
Heat and Dust
"Heat and Dust" is a Booker Prize–winning novel by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala that interweaves parallel stories of two Englishwomen in India, exploring themes of colonialism, desire, and cultural clash.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (47)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf | novel ⓘ |
| adaptation | radio dramatization ⓘ |
| author | V. S. Naipaul ⓘ |
| basedOn | experiences of V. S. Naipaul's father ⓘ |
| centralConflict | Mr Biswas's attempt to own a house ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin | Trinidad and Tobago ⓘ |
| coverArtist | Brian Russell ⓘ |
| criticalReception | widely acclaimed ⓘ |
| describedAs | masterpiece of V. S. Naipaul ⓘ |
| firstEditionFormat | hardcover ⓘ |
| genre |
literary fiction
ⓘ
postcolonial fiction ⓘ |
| hasCharacter |
Shama
ⓘ
the Tulsi family ⓘ |
| hasISBN | 9780330487191 ⓘ |
| hasMediaType |
audiobook
ⓘ
e-book ⓘ print ⓘ |
| hasSubject |
Indian diaspora in the Caribbean
ⓘ
colonial legacy ⓘ patriarchy and extended family ⓘ social mobility ⓘ |
| includedIn | modern literary canon ⓘ |
| influenced | postcolonial Caribbean literature ⓘ |
| languageVariant | Trinidadian English influences in dialogue ⓘ |
| literaryPeriod | 20th-century literature ⓘ |
| literaryStyle |
comic-tragic
ⓘ
realist ⓘ |
| mainCharacter | Mohun Biswas ⓘ |
| narrativeForm | third-person narrative ⓘ |
| notableFor |
detailed portrayal of Indo-Trinidadian life
ⓘ
exploration of postcolonial identity ⓘ |
| originalLanguage | English ⓘ |
| pageCountApprox | 600 ⓘ |
| placeInAuthorCareer | early major novel of V. S. Naipaul ⓘ |
| protagonistEthnicity | Indo-Trinidadian ⓘ |
| publicationYear | 1961 ⓘ |
| publisher |
Andre Deutsch
ⓘ
linked to:
André Deutsch
|
| setting | Trinidad ⓘ |
| structure | chronological ⓘ |
| theme |
colonial and postcolonial society
ⓘ
economic struggle ⓘ family relationships ⓘ home ownership ⓘ search for independence ⓘ self-worth ⓘ |
| timePeriod | early to mid-20th century ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: A House for Mr Biswas Description of subject: A House for Mr Biswas is a celebrated 1961 novel by V. S. Naipaul that follows the life-long struggle of an Indo-Trinidadian man seeking independence and self-worth through owning his own home.
Referenced by (2)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.