A Bend in the River (Masterplots II: British and Commonwealth Fiction Series)
At a glance:
- Author: V. S. Naipaul
- First Published: 1979
- Type of Work: Satiric realism
- Time of Work: The late 1960’s to the mid-1970’s
- Setting: An unnamed town at the bend of river Congo
- Principal Characters: Salim, Indar, Nazruddin, Father Huismans, Raymond, Yvette, Ferdinand, Zabeth
- Genres: Long fiction, Psychological fiction, Social realism
- Subjects: 1960’s, 1970’s, Africa or Africans, Voyages, Politics, Race, Revolutions, Developing countries, Rivers or waterways, Corruption
- Locales: Africa
The Novel
The action of the novel is set in postcolonial Africa, in a state undergoing the traumas of self-definition after independence, and concerns the effects of change on the lives of several Indian Africans, Europeans, and native Africans living in Mobuto Sese Seko’s Zaire. As a journey into the heart of what the Europeans called “darkness,” the novel echoes Joseph Conrad’s earlier Heart of Darkness (1902) in structure and spirit. Its structure is a journey that reverses the one made earlier by slaves: Salim the narrator (like Conrad’s Marlow) journeys...
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