'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 continent's remote interior and is selling sundries - little more than this
and that really - to 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
author's most potent works - a 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 Hardwick 'Always 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 Updike 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 continent's remote interior and is selling sundries - little more than this and
that really - to 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
author's most potent works - a truly moving story of historical upheaval and social breakdown.
