Title: A Review of “the Naipaul Fallacy”: Post-colonial Writing in A Bend in the River

Abstract: A Bend in the River, as a post-colonial literary canon, epitomizes the literary controversy of “the Naipaul Fallacy.” The main narrator Salim has “double vision” in the sense of Homi Bhabha, through whose perspective the dual desires of colonial empire and nation state are presented objectively in the decolonization movement of Africa, displaying prudent literary ethics. In the post-colonial society with cultural hybridity, the double vision breaks discourse hegemony and binary opposition to a certain degree, embodying a concern of “vernacular cosmopolitan”, which contributes to the reconstruction of “the Naipaul Fallacy” and reexamination of Naipaul’s post-colonial writing.

Keywords: A Bend in the River, V. S. Naipaul, Homi Bhabha, double vision, post-colonial

Author: Yuchen Hua, School of Foreign Language, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, China.