@article{Akande_2019, title={Futurities and the Urban Space in Naguib Mahfouz’s Cairo Modern and Toni Kan’s The Carnivorous City}, volume={7}, url={http://ujh.unilag.edu.ng/article/view/511}, abstractNote={<p>Urbanization is the bifurcation of space into rurality and urbanity usually brought about<br>by pressure of population from diverse backgrounds such that kinship ceases to be the<br>primary form of interrelationships. This paper examines how characters impact<br>environment in Naguib Mahfouz’s Cairo Modern (1945) and Toni Kan’s The<br>Carnivorous City (2016). The paper interrogates the physical environment, the<br>bureaucracy, and the professions, with a view to finding out if the selected novels can<br>provide a template for understanding how current cities anticipate the future.<br>Specifically, the paper aims to discover the commonalities between Cairo and Lagos in<br>terms of how they are advancing into the future. The concerns centre on the Postcolonial<br>moments in history: The problems of nation building showing how postcolonial subjects<br>in Egypt and Nigeria are turning Cairo and Lagos into cities of a peculiar stamp in<br>keeping with European models. Because of the rudimentary state of Africa’s political<br>culture, there is a basis for comparing Cairo of 1945 and Lagos of 2016. The social<br>structure of Cairo is based on the motive of corruption while Lagos is predisposed<br>toward violence and corruption. Future cities as conceived by postcolonial consciousness<br>are far removed from future cities as conceived by western imagination; hence, events in<br>the selected novels anticipate higher levels of corruption and violence in future Cairo and<br>Lagos. The attempt to build EKO Atlantic City suggests that it is imaginable that a city<br>can be well built. However, there is need for coercive instrument of state policing and<br>sufficient number of modern gadgets such as CCTV cameras to make it easier to track<br>offenders.</p&gt;}, number={1}, journal={Unilag Journal of Humanities}, author={Akande, Lola}, year={2019}, month={Dec.}, pages={165-181} }