Set in an unnamed African country after independence, the book is narrated by Salim, an ethnically Indian Muslim and a shopkeeper in a small, growing city in the country’s remote interior.
Salim observes the rapid changes in Africa with an outsider’s distance. What he sees is chaos, violent change, warring tribes, ignorance, isolation, poverty and a lack of preparation for the modern world the new State has entered.
Naipaul (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V._S._Naipaul) offers us a hugely imaginative, brittle tale of humans working their way through rapid change. A novel to read if you really want to understand the upheavals of the twentieth century. Published 1979.
336 pages in Picador paperback edition.
ISBN 978-0330522991
V.S. Naipaul