Sir V.S Naipaul is an Indian-origin, Trinidad-born British writer who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2001. A Bend in the River traces the journey of Salim, a Muslim merchant of Indian descent who has lived on the east coast of Africa among traders from his community. Salim’s decision to travel out of the communal fold of his village takes him to an African town at the bend of what appears to be the Congo River, where he buys a shop from an old associate, Nazruddin. Set in postcolonial Africa, the novel explores Salim’s uncertainty regarding his and the country’s future by foregrounding the political instability and violent ethnic assertions of different African groups. While Salim hopes to detach himself from the nationalist currents surging around him, he is unsettled by his status as a foreigner among Africans who have been given a new sense of self-worth tied to the notion of a new Africa.