A Bend in the River

Brilliant and terrifying Observer Set in an unnamed African country, the book is narrated by Salim, a young man from an Indian family of traders long resident on the coast. He believes The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it. So he has taken the initiative; left the coast; acquired his own shop in a small, growing city in the continents remote interior and is selling sundrieslittle more than this and that, reallyto the natives. This spot, this bend in the river, is a microcosm of post-colonial Africa at the time of Independence: a scene of chaos, violent change, warring tribes, ignorance, isolation and poverty. And from this rich landscape emerges one of the authors most potent worksa truly moving story of historical upheaval and social breakdown.Naipaul has fashioned a work of intense imaginative force. It is a haunting creation, rich with incident and human bafflement, played out in an immense detail of landscape rendered with a poignant brilliance. Elizabeth HardwickAlways a master of fictional landscape, Naipaul here shows, in his variety of human examples and in his search for underlying social causes, a Tolstoyan spirit John UpdikeSet in an unnamed African country, the book is narrated by Salim, a young man from an Indian family of traders long resident on the coast. He believes "The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it." So he has taken the initiative; left the coast; acquired his own shop in a small, growing city in the continents remote interior and is selling sundrieslittle more than this and that, reallyto the natives. This spot, this bend in the river, is a microcosm of post-colonial Africa at the time of Independence: a scene of chaos, violent change, warring tribes, ignorance, isolation and poverty. And from this rich landscape emerges one of the authors most potent worksa truly moving story of historical upheaval and social breakdown.