A Bend in the River - Definition and Overview

A Bend in the River (ISBN 0844666319) is a 1979 novel by Nobel laureate V. S. Naipaul.

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. Though born and raised in this country in a more cosmopolitan city on the coast during the colonial period, as neither European nor fully African, Salim observes the rapid changes in his homeland with an outsider's distance.

The first sentence of the book is considered emblematic of Naipaul's world view: "The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it."

A Bend in the River was short-listed for the Booker Prize in 1979.