The modern city and citizen efficacy in a Zambian novel

• Main Author: Primorac, Ranka (Author)
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2008-03.
• Subjects: Article
• Online Access: Get fulltext

Arguing against the grain of established critical opinion, this article analyses the textual complexity and cosmopolitanism of a contemporary Zambian novel, Dead Ends (Crime, Cops and a Renaissance) by Sekelani S. Banda, focusing on its representation of the modern city and citizen efficacy. Through Banda's deft handling of narrative time and genre Dead Ends contributes to Southern Africa's emergent social imaginaries by constructing hope as a social category predicated on the time-streams of both detection and emergence