List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Part I Theoretical and Historical Groundwork Chapter 1 Introduction Bibliography Chapter 2 Informal Urbanism and/as Representational Crisis Between the boosters and the hawks Beyond Manichean politics Representational crisis in urban studies Literature and the discursive field of urban informality Towards a transductive approach to Literary Urban Studies Bibliography Chapter 3 Changing Paradigms in Urban Studies Informality and urban planning, a history The modernists The 1976 self-help consensus: Turner, Perlman, Karpat The test of time: Revisiting Karpat, Perlman, and Turner's theories Economic Crisis, Structural Adjustment, and Hernando de Soto Bibliography Chapter 4 A New Generation of Urban Informalists Mike Davis and the Challenge of Slums Justin McGuirk's Radical Cities : A hybridizing approach Jennifer Robinson and ordinary cities Ananya Roy and "policy epistemologies" AbdouMaliq Simone, PAI and urban futures Bibliography Chapter 5 Literary Mappings of the Informal City Some precursors Urban informality in postcolonial literary history Two rhetorical tendencies of shanty fiction: the hyperbolic and the normalizing Insider, outsider, guarantor, guide (on multifocalization) Realism and representational innovation: A transductive itinerary Bibliography List of literary and cinematic works mentioned, alphabetical by author/director Part II Interdisciplinary Cross-readings Chapter 6 Hybrid Urbanization and Literary Space: Paulo Lins's City of God and Naïma Tagemouati's La Liste Paulo Lins's City of God, spatial form, and the neighborhood effect Naïma Lahbil Tagemouati's La Liste and the Great Paradox of urban planning Endings, afterlives, conclusions Bibliography Chapter 7 Ordinary Cities I: Upward Mobility in Istanbul (Pamuk and Tekin) Normalizing Informality in Orhan Pamuk's A Strangeness in My Mind Hyperbolic informality in Latife Tekin's Berji Kristin Representational politics in Tekin and Pamuk Bibliography Chapter 8 Memorializing People as Infrastructure in Abidjan and Dakar (Rouch, Sembène, Mambéty) Jean Rouch's, Moi, un noir : PAI in colonial Treichville Ousmane Sembène's Borom Sarret : PAI (and its risks) in independence-era Dakar Djibril Diop Mambéty's La petite vendeuse de Soleil : PAI after structural adjustment Conclusion Bibliography Chapter 9 Ordinary Cities II: Fables of Urban (Im)Mobility in Yaoundé and Lagos Rumors of humanity in Patrice Nganang's Dog Days Identitarian Flux and Urban Mobility in A. Igoni Barrett's Blackass Next steps and last words (in media res) Bibliography Chapter 10 Climates of Uncertainty (Patterson, Chamoiseau, Saulter, and KSR) Rastafarian Environmentalism in Orlando Patterson's Children of Sisyphus Creole environmentalism in Patrick Chamoiseau's Texaco Techno-environmental futures in Stephanie Saulter's ®Evolution Trilogy Kim Stanley Robinson's climate fictions and the end(s) of capitalism Some tactical conclusions Bibliography Chapter 11 Executive Summary and Closing Remarks (Soft Eyes) Looking back Looking ahead Bibliography Index.