Paper short abstract:

This paper addresses the central theme of the panel from a literary perspective. It focuses on inscriptions of the city –fictional narratives- and inscriptions on the city – varied urban signage- to elucidate the tensions and the contradictions in normative versions of African urban experience.

Paper long abstract:

Images of cities in African cultural expressions have long served to contest notions of power and dominance in African socio-political discourse. Indeed, a chronological review of the representation of African cities in the continent's literatures from the colonial or early post-colonial era to the present would reveal a parallel movement of expressions of anti-colonial sentiments, disillusion with post-independence governance and resistance to economic and socio-political disenfranchisement. Today, African fictional narratives are replete with dystopian images of cities, often juxtaposed with real or imagined "good cities". The contrasting representations, however, do not suggest longings for utopias. Rather, they echo the dissonance between the latter, often imagined by the wielders of political and/or economic power, and what is actually longed for. This paper will therefore address the central theme of this panel from a literary perspective. It will focus on inscriptions of the city -fictional narratives- and inscriptions on the city - varied urban signage- to elucidate the tensions and the contradictions in projections of urban experience in African cities. The study will be based primarily on novels by Nigerian, Sefi Atta (Everything Good Will Come), Kenyan, Meja Mwangi (Going Down River Road), Cameroonian, Calixthe Beyala (C'est le Soleil qui m'a brulée) and Equatorial Guinean, Maximiliano Nkogo (Ecos de Malabo). It will also draw on popular writings on streets in cities, such as Accra, to underline the resistance to normative versions of urban experience in the literary representations of Lagos, Nairobi, Malabo and a slum in Africa.