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.
Salim, the protagonist, grows up in the Indian community of traders on the east coast of Africa. Feeling insecure about his future in East Africa, he buys a business from Nazruddin in a town at "a bend in the river" in the heart of Africa. When he moves there, he finds the town decrepit, a "ghost town", its former European suburb reclaimed by the bush, and many of its European vestiges ruined in a "rage" by the locals in response to their suppression and humiliation during the colonial times. Old tribal distinctions have become important again. Salim trades in what people in the villages need, pencils and paper, pots and pans, various household utensils. Soon he is joined by his assistant Metty who comes from a family of house slaves his family had maintained in the east. One of his steady customers is Zabeth, a "marchande" from a village and a magician, too.
Zabeth has a son, Ferdinand, from a man of another tribe, and asks Salim to help him get educated. Ferdinand attends the local lycée that is run by Father Huismans, a Belgian priest who collects African masks and considered a "lover of Africa". Life in the town is slowly improving. Salim’s decision to move there gets vindicated when he learns that the Indian community on the East coast is getting persecuted. But he feels not secure either. Metty says of the local Africans "... they are malins", "because they lived with the knowledge of men as prey." A local rebellion breaks out, and the Indian merchants live in fear. Soon white mercenaries appear and restore order. After peace has returned Father Huismans goes on a trip. He is killed by unknown assailants and nobody cares. Afterwards, his collection of African masks is denounced as affront to African religion. An American visitor pillages most of it and ships it home –"The richest products of the forest".
The town now develops becoming what it always was, a trading center for the region. Government agencies spring up. European salesmen and visitors arrive. Salim’s friends Mahesh and Shoba become successful with their new Bigburger franchise. The new army arrives – "poachers of ivory and thieves of gold". The portrait of the President – "the Big Man" – is displayed everywhere. A new section of town is built, the "State Domain", to showcase the President’s vision of a new Africa. Yet buildings are shoddy, tractors of the agricultural center never go to work, and much of it falls quickly into some disrepair, – Salim calls it a "hoax". The Domain is soon converted into a university and conference center.
Salim is visited by Indar who grew up with him on the East coast, then went to England to study and now has become a lecturer at the new institution. He takes Salim to a party in the Domain to meet Yvette and Raymond. Raymond had been the advisor and mentor of the President. Although in charge of the Domain, he finds himself now outside of the center of power. Loyal to the President, he continues to write for him hoping to be recalled to the capital. Salim whose experience with women has been limited to prostitutes is intrigued by Yvette, Raymond's much younger wife. Later, after Indar departs with the steamer, Salim and Yvette enter an adulterous affair, right under Raymond's eyes. Eventually, the liaison breaks down, Salim hitting her and spitting on her, between the legs.
Raymond's attempts to please the Big Man are not successful, instead the President publishes "a very small, brief book of thoughts, Maximes , two or three thoughts to each page, each thought about four or five lines long." Like others Salim is forced to buy a stack for distribution. The local youth group displeases the President and is denounced in one of his propaganda speeches. As a result unrest grows, corruption and extortions become more prevalent, and a "Liberation Army" forms in the underground. They reject the President, his cult of the black Madonna, his vision of Africa, and want to return to the "truthful laws" of the ancestors. Salim looks for a way out.
He travels to London where he meets Nazruddin. Nazruddin after having sold his business to Salim, had first moved to Uganda, left it because of persecution, moved then to Canada, left it because of its capitalistic rapaciousness, and finally landed in London becoming a landlord. He bemoans the lack of security for honest businessmen,– there is no safe place. Salim becomes engaged to his daughter, but soon leaves returning to his place in Africa. Upon arrival he learns that he has been expropriated, the President’s new program of "Radicalization" has transferred his business to a local. Théotime, a "state trustee", is ignorant and lazy and retains Salim as manager and chauffeur.
Salim recognizes that all is lost. He had hidden some ivory on his property, but betrayed by Metty, is found out and put in jail. He is presented to the commissioner, now Ferdinand, who has moved up in the administration after his training in the capital. Ferdinand tells him that there is no safety, no hope, and everybody is in fear of his life. "We’re all going to hell, and every man knows this in his bones. We’re being killed. Nothing has any meaning." He sets Salim free telling him to leave the country. Salim takes the last steamer before the President arrives at the town to supervise an execution of a yet-to-be-determined victim. During the night, there is a battle on the ship, as rebels try to kidnap it. The attack is repelled, but the attached barge, full of Africans, is snapped loose and drifts down the river.
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