7.4 /10 1 Votes
Originally published 1954 | 3.7/5 Goodreads | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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People of the City is the debut novel of Cyprian Ekwensi first published in 1954 as part of the influential African Writers Series. In Ekwensi's obituary in The Guardian, Shola Adenekan called the novel "the first Nigerian work to gain international acclaim and the first Nigerian novel to be published in Britain", preempting the importance of Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart. The novel was a predecessor to a number of other city novels in the Nigerian tradition.
Contents
Development
Ekwensi began writing the novel while studying pharmacy on scholarship at the University of London. The novel, originated as a series of stories broadcast on the radio, for West Africans living in Britain after World War II.
Critic Chidi Okonkwo, says that the primary influences for Ekwenksi when developing the novel and his writing style, included "Westerns, detective thrillers, oriental tales like Arabian Nights", "European-hero-in-Africa" tales, like those of H. Rider Haggard, adventure tales like Robert Louis Stevenson's, and Indian films." Okonkwo describes these influences as obscuring Ekwenski's earlier experience translating African indigenous stories into English.
Style
The novel has a didactic tone.
Themes
The novel challenges European colonial dominance in Africa.
Literary criticism
Early reception of the novel was generally positive, focusing on the urban setting.