Narrating the African city from the diaspora: Lagos as a trope in Ben Okri and Chika Unigwe's short stories

Abstract

In this paper, an attempt is made to examine the ways in which an African city (Lagos) is written about in the works of African writers in Europe. The paper relies on the templates provided by selected short stories of the London‐based Nigerian writer (Ben Okri) and Chika Unigwe, the Nigerian writer who lives with her Flemish husband in Turnhout, Belgium. In the main, the paper critically elucidates how the two migrant writers appropriate the city of Lagos in their respective texts. The analysis of the selected stories has revealed that Lagos has been used as a topos, a theme, a trope, a metaphor and a symbol by the writers. The city has been used in the stories as a pervading metaphor for insecurity, neglect, anonymity and perversion of the ideal. Thus, in the texts, the reader witnesses a tacit critique of urban regulatory mechanisms and all forms of neocolonial decadence in modern African states. It is also revealed that the stories appeal to readers due to the writers' adroit blend of matter and manner, that is, there is a skilful interface between literary aesthetics and social realities.