A Bend in the River

by V.S. Naipaul

The boy’s father was a trader. As a trader, he had travelled about the country during the miraculous peace of the colonial time, when men could, if they wished, pay little attention to tribal boundaries.

Zabeth, as for many Africans of her generation, education was something only foreigners could give.

I didn’t give the answer I thought he was expecting. I didn’t say, ‘The white men.’ Though with half of myself I felt like saying it, to put him in his place.

He came to the flat in the afternoon, and he was wild, close to hysteria, possessed by all the African terror of strange Africans.

What a strain it was, picking your way through stupidity and aggressiveness and pride and hurt!