{"product_id":"a-bend-in-the-river-9780679722021","title":"A Bend in the River","description":"\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003eWidely hailed as the Nobel Prize-winning author's greatest work, this novel takes us into the life of a young Indian man who moves to an isolated town at the bend of a great river in a newly independent African nation. - \"Brilliant.\" --\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eIn this haunting masterpiece of postcolonial literature, short-listed for the Booker Prize in 1979, Naipaul gives us a convincing and disturbing vision of a place caught between the dangerously alluring modern world and its own tenacious past. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eSalim is doubly an outsider in his new home--an unnamed country that resembles the Congo--by virtue of his origins in a community of Indian merchants on the coast of East Africa. Uncertain of his future, he has come to take possession of a local trading post he has naively purchased sight unseen. But what Salim discovers on his arrival is a ghost town, reduced to ruins in the wake of the recently departed European colonizers and in the process of being reclaimed by the surrounding forest. Salim struggles to build his business against a backdrop of growing chaos, conflict, ignorance, and poverty. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eHis is a journey into the heart of Africa, into the same territory explored by Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness nearly eighty years earlier--but witnessed this time from the other side of the tragedy of colonization. Salim discovers that the nation's violent legacy persists, through the rise of a dictator who calls himself the people's savior but whose regime is built on fear and lies. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"Confirms Naipaul's position as one of the best writers now at work.\" --\u003ci\u003eNewsweek\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eV.S. NAIPAUL was born in Trinidad in 1932. He came to England on a scholarship in 1950. He spent four years at University College, Oxford, and began to write, in London, in 1954. He pursued no other profession. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e His novels include \u003ci\u003eA House for Mr Biswas\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Mimic Men\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eGuerrillas\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eA Bend in the River\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eThe Enigma of Arrival\u003c\/i\u003e. In 1971 he was awarded the Booker Prize for \u003ci\u003eIn a Free State\u003c\/i\u003e. His works of nonfiction, equally acclaimed, include \u003ci\u003eAmong the Believers\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eBeyond Belief\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Masque of Africa\u003c\/i\u003e, and a trio of books about India: \u003ci\u003eAn Area of Darkness\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eIndia: A Wounded Civilization\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eIndia: A Million Mutinies Now\u003c\/i\u003e. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e In 1990, V.S. Naipaul received a knighthood for services to literature; in 1993, he was the first recipient of the David Cohen British Literature Prize. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2001. He lived with his wife Nadira and cat Augustus in Wiltshire, and died in 2018.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Vintage","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50514298962194,"sku":"9780679722021","price":12.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_f332e68c-f6d7-48fe-8b30-caa67277390e.jpg?v=1730978543","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/a-bend-in-the-river-9780679722021","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}