‘A Journey Through Literary Lagos’
Travel Blog • Michael Yessis • 04.04.07 | 8:17 AM ET
The cityscape of Lagos, as George Packer describes it in a recent New Yorker epic, is either a “a life force or an impending apocalypse.” In a piece in the Virginia Quarterly Review, World Hum books editor Frank Bures taps into the former, exploring Nigeria’s 23 million strong megacity as fertile literary ground.
“In Lagos, there is a story on every corner, a novella standing in every doorway,” he writes. “The wind blows poems across the city like the bits of trash cover it. Lagos is a huge Dickensian space full of heartbreak and humor and millions of souls putting themselves up against the hard edge of the world. The city is pulsing with stories that flow through its streets.”
Photo of Lagos, Nigera by zouzouwizman via Flickr (Creative Commons).
Related on World Hum:
* ‘This is Lagos’: George Packer in Nigeria’s Megacity
* Forget Hollywood. How About Nollywood?
* Nigeria’s Airplane House: Very Strange, but Nice. Very Nice.’