A Bend in the River 819near-anarchy. The narrative focuses on the personal
experiences of Salim, the narrator, an Indian Muslim
who buys a general store in a small trading town
by a river. Neither European nor African, Salim is
trapped between the upsurge of African nationalism
and the decaying residue of European colonialism.
Through him, Naipaul describes armed coups, mas-
sacres, ethnic cleansing, and political terror tactics
that have historical authenticity without specifically
criticizing any one country or person. Salim occupies
a centrist position, racially and politically. He inter-
acts with Zabeth, who represents “authentic” Africa
with its progressive impulses rooted in tribal tra-
ditions and superstitions. Zabeth’s son Ferdinand
becomes the model for the “new African” generation
seeking power within modern African statehood.
Conversely, Salim’s servant Metty (also known as
Ali) characterizes the worst of postcolonial culture’s
corruption and betrayals.
Naipaul uses these characters and indirect his-
torical reference to examine such themes as fate,
hope, and nationalism. His ability to depict the
deterioration of former colonies honestly was par-
ticularly relevant to the political environment of the
1960s and 1970s. It offers an important corrective to
the romantic view of colonialism.
Divya Saksena
Fate in A Bend in the River
A Bend in the River explores the personal and collec-
tive alienation experienced in new nations that are
still struggling to integrate their native and West-
ern-colonial heritages. V. S. Naipaul’s 1979 novel is
set in an unnamed African country (probably mod-
eled on Mobutu Sésé Seko’s Zaire, originally the
Belgian Congo) after independence.
The narrator, Salim, is an ethnic Indian Muslim
shopkeeper in a small town in the country’s remote
interior. Though born and raised in another country
in a more cosmopolitan urban environment during
the colonial period, Salim feels his identity is neither
European nor fully African. As such, he initially
observes the rapid changes in his homeland under
a “Big Man” with an outsider’s distance and indif-
ference. From the beginning, Salim appears to be a
fatalist, slogging away at his business, taking events
as they come, negotiating his way around them if
he can, but always aware of a vast, unseen hand of
providence overshadowing everything he does and
experiences. The opening sentence of the book sug-
gests Salim’s and Naipaul’s worldview: “The world is
what it is; men who are nothing, who allow them-
selves to become nothing, have no place in it.”
Within this essentially pessimistic premise, Nai-
paul reiterates the essential corruptibility of man-
kind. Salim buys Nazruddin’s shop in the small town
on the bend of the river and gradually rebuilds the
shattered business as the townspeople limp back to
some semblance of normality. He has success but
soon realizes he has no future in this country ruled
by the Big Man, president for life. Here Salim will
always be the outsider who has to confront the
knowledge that, despite all his efforts, his way of life
is coming to its end and eventually he must give up
everything. The town, aspiring to be a city, is in con-
stant conflict with the bush or jungle that surrounds
it. In this it becomes symbolic of human endeavor
confronting an inexorable predestination.
The bush is a place of senseless violence and
unseen crimes, such as the meaningless murder of
Father Huisman, whose enthusiasm for collecting
African relics makes him a target for native nation-
alists. He has tried to see “human richness” in the
bush, but Salim recognizes that “His idea of civili-
zation was also like his vanity.” In his vanity, Father
Huisman has overreached the benefits of his liberal
intellectualism and invited his own fate, to become a
target for the rage and anger of the neo-nationalists.
While Naipaul’s characters all face the existential
dilemma of confronting chaos within and around
them, they also choose to endure psychic torture,
to seek a means of coping with their pain and loss.
As Salim muses after Huisman’s death, he and his
friends are fated to remain “outsiders, but neither
settlers nor visitors, just people with nowhere better
to go.” But he further realizes that their fate is linked
to the economics of their situation as well. Civilized
but homeless people like him are forced to live with
the knowledge of their own vulnerability, with the
temporality of their success, yet their only option in
life is to keep making money while they can.
Alongside this fatalistic mentality, there is also
the ray of optimism they share with Huisman, the
belief that things are destined to change: “Unless