Intermedial fictions of the "new" metropolis

Calcutta, Delhi and Cairo in the graphic novels of Sarnath Banerjee and G. Willow Wilson1

Bibliographic Data

ID2178596
AuthorsCecile Sandten
Year2011
Volume47
Issue5
Pages510-522
Publication date2011-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Postcolonial Writing (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1744-9855 • E-ISSN: 1744-9863
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/17449855.2011.614786
OpenAlexW2081491759
LanguageEN
Citations received13

The notion of “new” metropolises alludes to the multilayered ways of life inside and outside, or even “downside”, of postcolonial cityscapes. This holds true, for example, for Calcutta, Delhi or Cairo. Unlike the normative conception of the western metropolis, three graphic novels, Sarnath Banerjee’s Corridor (2004) and The Barn Owl’s Wondrous Capers (2007) and G. Willow Wilson’s and M.K. Perker’s Cairo (2007), produce “new” metropolises which disclose the postcolonial city’s own subversive nature of underworlds morphing into overworlds, where tradition, modernity (and postmodernity) collide in the most unrelenting and dynamic fashion. The texts under discussion exemplify the nature and scope of the “new” metropolis by virtue of their enabling synthesis between the literary and imaginary. By focusing on the strategies of palimpsest-like layering in the three novels, this essay aims to show that postcolonial cities are essentially “new” metropolises that do not lend themselves to an easy explanation or conceptual ornamentation. Instead, they bear features of dynamism and multiplex layering that the literature on urban studies and postcolonial metropolises in general, has so far failed to address

Art · Art history · Literature · Palimpsest · Sociology · Comics and Graphic Narratives · Gothic Literature and Media Analysis · Media, Gender, and Advertising · History

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