A Bend in the River
First edition
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| Author | V. S. Naipaul |
|---|---|
| Country | Trinidad and Tobago |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Alfred A Knopf |
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Publication date
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May 1979 |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 278 pages |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 4494403 |
| 823/.9/14 | |
| LC Class | PZ4.N155 Be 1979 PR9272.9.N32 |
A Bend in the River is a 1979 novel by Nobel laureate V. S. Naipaul.
In 1998, the Modern Library ranked A Bend in the River #83 on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. It was short-listed for the Booker Prize in 1979.
Set in an unnamed African country after independence, the book is narrated by Salim, an ethnically Indian Muslim and a shopkeeper in a small, growing city in the country's remote interior. Salim observes the rapid changes in Africa with an outsider's distance.
Salim, the protagonist, grows up in the Indian community of traders on the east coast of Africa. Feeling insecure about his future in East Africa, he buys a business from Nazruddin in a town at "a bend in the river" in the heart of Africa. When he moves there, he finds the town decrepit, a "ghost town", its former European suburb reclaimed by the bush, and many of its European vestiges ruined in a "rage" by the locals in response to their suppression and humiliation during the colonial times. Old tribal distinctions have become important again. Salim trades in what people in the villages need, pencils and paper, pots and pans, various household utensils. Soon he is joined by his assistant Metty who comes from a family of house slaves his family had maintained in the east. One of his steady customers is Zabeth, a "marchande" from a village and a magician, too. Zabeth has a son, Ferdinand, from a man of another tribe, and asks Salim to help him get educated. Ferdinand attends the local lycée that is run by Father Huismans, a Belgian priest who collects African masks and considered a "lover of Africa". Life in the town is slowly improving. Salim’s decision to move there gets vindicated when he learns that the Indian community on the East coast is getting persecuted. But he feels not secure either. Metty says of the local Africans "... they are malins", "because they lived with the knowledge of men as prey." A local rebellion breaks out, and the Indian merchants live in fear. Soon white mercenaries appear and restore order. After peace has returned Father Huismans goes on a trip. He is killed by unknown assailants and nobody cares. Afterwards, his collection of African masks is denounced as affront to African religion. An American visitor pillages most of it and ships it home –"The richest products of the forest".
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