Urban Literature and the Nigerian Challenges

Abstract

Literature has been used and is still being used as a tool for solving societal problems in different nations at different times. Urban literature is a good example of literature that addresses and analyses societal problems. The European novel developed simultaneously with Western urban civilization (Ihekweazu 1992). Some critics argue that modernity finds adequate expression in the city novel as in novels like Zola’s Paris (1898), James Joyce’s Ulysses (1921), John Dos Passos’ Manhattan Transfer (1925) and Alfred Döbblins Berlin Alexanderplatz (1929) among others. Several of Cyprian Ekwensi’s urban novels also fall within the above list. This paper is more of a proposal on the achievement envisaged in the use of urban literature to solve some of our national problems. We, therefore, conclude with the proposition that if literature was used to solve societal problems in different places in the past, urban literature could be used to solve many of the problems in Nigeria today, particularly if targeted to address the problem of poor reading culture among Nigerians.