Speculative fiction and African urban futures: Reading Imagine Africa 500

Abstract

This article explores the place of the future African city as presented in contemporary African speculative fiction. It focuses on the short stories in the collection Imagine Africa 500 to look at how the urban space is conceptualized in these narrations of an imagined future Africa, 500 years from now. While the discussion looks at the urban space and imagined technological development, it also takes note of ecological narratives and the contrast drawn between the city and the rural, the local and the foreign, as imagined for the future. The article aims to provoke a debate on the imaginations of what a future African city may look like as presented through literary works and the significance of these imaginings today within developmental and environmental lenses. The aim is to look not only at the creative text but the literary production mechanisms that produce these texts, taking note of the significance of the city space as a physical setting for literary organizations that produce such texts as well as a central theme in the narratives told through these platforms. It reads the future city through use of language, space, form and style to look at how the modern short story is theorizing on African futures.