Suspended City”
Personal, Urban, and National Development in Chris Abani's Graceland
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9250554 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Harrison Harrison (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2012 |
| Volume | 43 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 95 |
| Publication date | 2012-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Research in African Literatures (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0034-5210 • E-ISSN: 1527-2044 |
| Publisher | Indiana University Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.2979/reseafrilite.43.2.95 |
| OpenAlex | W2122799404 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 19 |
In Graceland (2004), Chris Abani extends a long tradition of Lagos literature by re-imagining the city from the perspective of its poorest population. By invoking and subverting the Bildungsroman genre through his narration of the young slumdweller Elvis's troubled coming of age, he suggestively critiques the instability and inconsistency of the postcolonial nation-state. Specifically, through his formal and thematic elaboration of a "suspension" leitmotif, Abani demonstrates the paralyzing imbrication of the local, national, and global discourses of development that collide at the urban margins. While national models of progress are proven untenable by the discrepant trajectories of development that intersect the city, the promise of cultural transnationalism is equally circumscribed by Elvis's immersion in a global economic system that perpetuates his marginalization. In his fictional representation of Lagos's uneven development, Abani thus responds to calls for more holistic accounts of development than those which emerge from dominant economic analyses
Aesthetics · Art · Economic growth · Geography · Literature · Narrative · National development · Sociology · Caribbean history, culture, and politics · Gender Studies · History · Postcolonial and Cultural Literary Studies · Urban and Rural Development Challenges
Maldevelopment
The way of the world
A History of Nigeria
Human Rights, Inc.
Biafra and the Aesthetics of Closure in the Third Generation Nigerian Novel
An Interview with Chris Abani
Forced eviction and forced relocation in Nigeria
The Colonial Bildungsroman
Learning from Lagos
Coming of Age with an AK-47
Recharting the Geography of Genre
Mapping Intersections
Surplus City
Imagined Communities. Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,3 |
| Citation span | 2016 - 2025 (10) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |