A Bend in the River. by NAIPAUL, V.S

New York, Alfred A Knopf, 1979. . First edition, first impression; 8vo (22 x 15 cm); presentation copy, signed 'V.S. Naipaul for Al Murray on the title page'; original black cloth with author's initials in gilt to upper board and title in gilt to spine, marked and spine rubbed, with the dust jacket, faded and torn in places.
a presentation copy to american jazz critic albert murray
A Bend in the River is set in a unnamed postcolonial Central African country and narrated by Salim, a shopkeeper and ethnic Indian Muslim. Naipaul explores the chaos and violence suffered after independence and how a power vacuum can quickly lead to the tyranny of dictatorship. Perceived by some to be written in defence of European colonialism, Naipaul admitted that he in fact knew very little about the region when he started writing the book. Despite this, the novel immediately won praise from critics for its poignant brilliance and was shortlisted for the Booker prize in 1979. In 1998 the Modern Library ranked A Bend in the River as one of the 100 best English-language books of the twentieth century.

Naipaul recalls in A Turn in the South, 'I was given the name of a writer who had been educated at Tuskegee, Al Murray. He was, or had been, a protégé of Ralph Ellison...His sitting room was full of books and records...the books were a serious collection of twentieth-century American writing in first or very early editions.' Al Murray would later say, 'Naipaul is like a satellite in orbit. He's got an objectivity that no one else has, and he knows that the past is an albatross.' Inscribed, literary association copies of Naipaul's works are distinctly uncommon.