The Palgrave Handbook of Literature and the City

This book is about the impact of literature upon cities world-wide, and cities upon literature. It examines why the city matters so much to contemporary critical theory, and why it has inspired so many forms of writing which have attempted to deal with its challenges to think about it and to represent it. Gathering together 40 contributors who look at different modes of writing and film-making in throughout the world, this handbook asks how the modern city has  engendered so much theoretical consideration, and looks at cities and their literature from China to Peru, from New York to Paris, from London to Kinshasa. It looks at some of the ways in which modern cities – whether capitals, shanty-towns, industrial or ‘rust-belt’ – have forced themselves on people’s ways of thinking and writing.

Jeremy Tambling has been Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Hong Kong and at the University of Manchester, UK; and is author of over twenty books on literary and cultural theory, many engaged with cities and urban theory.

“This large compendium explores the importance of writings about a city to how cities become embedded in the popular imagination. … The handbook abounds with examples of themes and locations. … of interest to those who believe that fiction can be as illuminating as nonfiction, and that the way cities have become inscribed in literature shapes and reflects perceptions of these spaces.” (E&U Environment & Urbanization, environmentandurbanization.org, February, 2018)

“The book fundamentally addresses what effect on literature the various great cities around the world have (intrinsically) had. … there is a rich tapestry of depth running throughout this stunning book, that, for anyone remotely interested in literature and/or cities, comes both highly and regally recommended.” (David Marx Book Reviews, davidmarxbookreviews.wordpress.com, November, 2017)

“The relationship between literature and the city is a Gordian knot, that becomes more tangled the more the critic tries to unpick it. Rather than slicing through it, this ambitious collection of essays instead catalogues its dimensions, ranging far beyond the familiar studies of European and Ameriacan cities into Latin America, Africa, and Asia. With essays on Brasília, Lagos, Beiruit, and Tokyo, as well as Lisbon and Vienna, the result is a fascinating, almost encyclopaedic, account of urban literature on a scale that no one else has yet attempted.” (Scott McCracken, Queen Mary University of London, UK)