Contested History and Struggling Lives: Reading A Bend in the River as a Narrative of Change and Disorder

Abstract

History is constructed by those in power and is shaped by memory, perspectives, and subjective truth. It can be fragmented, contested, and chaotic, marked by the transition from colonial rule to post-independence, from traditional to modern living, and by the struggle for survival and the relentless escape from the void. Naipaul has depicted postcolonial societies and their struggles in his novels. The present novel, Bend in the River, is set in an African society marred by chaos and disorder after the withdrawal of colonial forces and depicts the problems associated with the new order and militant forces. It showcases the struggles and difficult lives of migrants and diasporic people who want to achieve something but are caught in the chaos of changing circumstances in a foreign land. This paper, therefore,  attempts to bring out the negotiation of colonial history, subjective history and postcolonial history- thereby revealing their intersections. While doing so, the narrative reflects the universal human predicament, migration, and the search for meaning amid navigating phases of change and disorder.