A Bend In The River

Naipaul explores the theme of home primarily by giving us multiple characters who are outsiders searching for home. Another way to understand this theme is in terms of identity: who is at home and who is a stranger, or outsider? Salim comes from coastal Africa and never felt at home there. He states that “Africa was [his] home” but that “[t]he coast was not truly Africa” (10). In other words, the real Africa was not Salim’s home, not his native environment. 

Salim buys the shop from Nazruddin to try to make a new home for himself in a place where he might succeed. The flat he buys in town was formerly occupied by a Belgian artist, a nod toward postcolonialism. Salim inherits her paintings and furniture but does nothing to make the place his own. When the Domain is built, Salim yearns to have the more sophisticated life he believes it represents. He meets Yvette and Raymond there and discovers they are twice removed from home: once because they’ve come to Africa from Europe, and again because they were exiled to the town, where they wait in the hope of being recalled by the President.