Read the Places

The river town of A Bend in the River

Salim, a Muslim of Indian descent, buys a shop in a town at a bend of the great river in the interior of a newly independent central African country, and watches the fragile post-colonial order rise and rot under the rule of the Big Man. Naipaul's unnamed town is drawn from Kisangani on the Congo: the river and its choking water hyacinths, the market and the shop, the Big Man's shiny new Domain on the edge of the bush, and the far-off capital from which power and terror flow.

Author
V. S. Naipaul, 1979
Places
5

Open the interactive map →

The shop0% in
Salim

The town at the bend

The shop

Map of The town at the bend today
the river town today

Salim drives inland to buy a shop in the half-ruined town at the bend of the river, where the trade of the interior slowly revives after the chaos of independence. The market, the shabby shops, the mix of peoples washed up here, this is the frontier world in which Naipaul watches a new Africa try, and fail, to hold itself together.

The opening chapters

inspired bySalim's shop and the market town at the river's bend are drawn from Kisangani, the real city on the upper Congo, left unnamed in the novel; sited there.

Open in Google Maps ↗Street View ↗

The river25% in
Zabeth

The great river

The river

Map of The great river today
the river town today

Down the great river the marchande Zabeth poles her dugout from her secret village to trade at Salim's shop, and up it drifts the water hyacinth, the new weed choking the channels. The river, carrying both commerce and the ever-returning wild, is the book's central presence, indifferent to the human schemes on its banks.

The river chapters

explicitThe great river of the novel is the Congo, on which the town sits and by which the trader-woman Zabeth brings her goods; sited on the river at the town.

Open in Google Maps ↗Street View ↗

The new Africa50% in
Ferdinand

The Domain

The new Africa

Map of The Domain today
the river town today

On the edge of town the Big Man raises the Domain, a gleaming new suburb of villas and a polytechnic meant to embody the modern Africa, where the bright young Ferdinand studies. Naipaul makes the Domain the emblem of a borrowed, hollow modernity, impressive and unreal, already cracking as soon as it is built.

The Domain chapters

inspired byThe Domain, the Big Man's showpiece of model buildings and a new university on the town's edge, is drawn from Mobutu-era development projects and sited beside the river town.

Open in Google Maps ↗Street View ↗

The rapids75% in
Salim

The falls

The rapids

Map of The falls today
the river town today

Above the town the river breaks into the great rapids that halt navigation, the reason a settlement grew here at all. The falls, thunderous and unchanging, frame the town's whole precarious life, marking the limit where the modern world's boats stop and the deep interior begins.

The town's setting

explicitThe rapids just above the town are the real Boyoma (Stanley) Falls at Kisangani, the head of navigation on the Congo; sited there.

Open in Google Maps ↗Street View ↗

The Big Man100% in
The Big Man

The capital

The Big Man

Map of The capital today
the river town today

From the far-off capital the Big Man's power and cult radiate outward, his portraits, his edicts, his sudden campaigns of nationalisation and terror reaching even this remote town. Naipaul lets the unseen capital stand for the whole arbitrary machinery of the new state, under which Salim's world is at last confiscated and he must flee.

The later chapters

explicitThe distant capital from which the Big Man rules is drawn from Kinshasa, the real seat of Mobutu's power; sited there, far downriver from the town.

Open in Google Maps ↗Street View ↗