V. S. Naipaul, A Bend in the River

John Parras (William Paterson University)

Ed. by John Thieme, University of East Anglia
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 4.1.1: Anglophone Writing and Culture of Central America and the Caribbean.
Vol. editors: Ronald Cummings (McMaster University), Delphine Munos (Université de Liège), Melanie Otto (Trinity College Dublin), Jak Peake (University of Essex), Abigail Ward (University of Nottingham)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1979

Places

United Kingdom (Publication/ performance)

Genres and Modes

Novel

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V. S. Naipaul's

A Bend in the River

was first published in 1979, after Naipaul had firmly established his considerable reputation—one that would lead to the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2001. Treating such topics as the cultural interdependence of Africa and Europe, the influence of ideology and ethnicity on an individual's identity, and the complexities of African nationhood following independence from Belgian colonial rule, the novel grapples with weighty post-colonial themes in an undaunted manner for which Naipaul has been both praised and bitterly criticized.

The novel is set in Zaire (currently the Democratic Republic of the Congo) during the rule of Mobutu Sese Seko in the late 1960s and early 1970s, a period of great social and political upheaval in the Congo. However, though

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1553 words

Citation: Parras, John. "A Bend in the River". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 17 October 2003 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=7260, accessed 21 November 2024.]

V. S. Naipaul, A Bend in the River

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