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MEGACITY
MEGACITY brings together new writing from some of the most impenetrable corners of the world today with creativity, resilience and beautifully black humour. COVID-19 has thrived in megacities and poses unique challenges to the world’s densest urban hubs. Beat lockdown by travelling virtually, into the homes and lives of global megacity writers from Karachi, Paris, Manila, Lagos, Tokyo and others.
Absurd, extreme, pleasure-filled, crime-ridden. Sky-high meccas of opportunity, vast swathes of squalor.
This is the megacity and this, in many ways, is our future. Not long ago these massive urban hubs with over 10 million people were an anomaly - in 1950 only New York and Tokyo could claim the title. Now, eight of the world's population live in thirty-three megacities with many more predicted to arrive and make these places their home in the coming years.
MEGACITY brings together twenty-two individual, creative responses to the megacity, infiltrating some of the densest, most difficult corners of the world today. From the tightly packed slums of Delhi and the violent favelas of São Paulo, to eye-watering London property prices and Chinese megacities constructed seemingly overnight - if you boggle at how anyone negotiates today’s rampant, unchecked city growth, this book is for you.
Witchcraft, terrorism, chemical swamps, modern slavery, and corpses for rent are all day to day events within these pages. Translated from native languages such as DRC’s Lingala to Portuguese written in deepest Brazilian slang, this collection goes to places which are, for most of us, completely impenetrable.
Some of today’s most renowned scientists, economists, architects and urban planners have turned their attention to the megacity in order to understand pressing contemporary dilemmas. It can be difficult, however, when we read their criticism of demographics, economics, infrastructure and environment, to imagine the individual amongst the teeming masses. MEGACITY redresses this problem: giving the reader a many-faceted sense of the megacity character, their stories and their settings.
“Megacities are the super-novas of human social evolution, non-encompassable in their totality but fertile with conflicting futures. In this stunning anthology, local writers describe life within these gigantic urban landscapes as paradoxes of paradise and the inferno” - Mike Davis, author of City of Quartz and Planet of the Slums
Contributing authors
Dele Adeyemo, Kunlé Adayemi, Jessica Zafra, Richard Ali A Mutu, Uday Prakesh, Diego Gerard, Emily Ruth Ford, Liza Alexandrova-Zorina, Deepti Kapoor, Ayodele Olofintuade, Wu Jun, Anna Pook, Daniel Saldaña París, Hideo Furukawa, Ahmed Naji, Ferréz, Bilal Tanweer, Sheyla Smanioto, Montasser Al-Qaffash, and Jeffrey Pascual Yap
Absurd, extreme, pleasure-filled, crime-ridden. Sky-high meccas of opportunity, vast swathes of squalor.
This is the megacity and this, in many ways, is our future. Not long ago these massive urban hubs with over 10 million people were an anomaly - in 1950 only New York and Tokyo could claim the title. Now, eight of the world's population live in thirty-three megacities with many more predicted to arrive and make these places their home in the coming years.
MEGACITY brings together twenty-two individual, creative responses to the megacity, infiltrating some of the densest, most difficult corners of the world today. From the tightly packed slums of Delhi and the violent favelas of São Paulo, to eye-watering London property prices and Chinese megacities constructed seemingly overnight - if you boggle at how anyone negotiates today’s rampant, unchecked city growth, this book is for you.
Witchcraft, terrorism, chemical swamps, modern slavery, and corpses for rent are all day to day events within these pages. Translated from native languages such as DRC’s Lingala to Portuguese written in deepest Brazilian slang, this collection goes to places which are, for most of us, completely impenetrable.
Some of today’s most renowned scientists, economists, architects and urban planners have turned their attention to the megacity in order to understand pressing contemporary dilemmas. It can be difficult, however, when we read their criticism of demographics, economics, infrastructure and environment, to imagine the individual amongst the teeming masses. MEGACITY redresses this problem: giving the reader a many-faceted sense of the megacity character, their stories and their settings.
“Megacities are the super-novas of human social evolution, non-encompassable in their totality but fertile with conflicting futures. In this stunning anthology, local writers describe life within these gigantic urban landscapes as paradoxes of paradise and the inferno” - Mike Davis, author of City of Quartz and Planet of the Slums
Contributing authors
Dele Adeyemo, Kunlé Adayemi, Jessica Zafra, Richard Ali A Mutu, Uday Prakesh, Diego Gerard, Emily Ruth Ford, Liza Alexandrova-Zorina, Deepti Kapoor, Ayodele Olofintuade, Wu Jun, Anna Pook, Daniel Saldaña París, Hideo Furukawa, Ahmed Naji, Ferréz, Bilal Tanweer, Sheyla Smanioto, Montasser Al-Qaffash, and Jeffrey Pascual Yap
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First published June 15, 2020
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About the author
Kathleen McCaul Moura
1 book2 followersAlso published as Kathleen McCaul.
Kathleen McCaul Moura is a writer, editor and researcher. She has published two novels, acclaimed by James Ellroy as a ‘stunning new voice’, and an anthology of new writing from megacities, which Mike Davis called ‘paradise and the inferno.’ She holds a Phd in Creative Writing from the internationally renowned centre of writing, the University of East Anglia, and a degree in English literature and language from Oxford University.
She trained as a journalist with the BBC, and worked as a reporter in Iraq, India, Kashmir, as well as for Al Jazeera English in Doha and London. Her non-fiction writing has appeared with The BBC, The Guardian, as well prestigious journals The London Review of Books and Granta Magazine, among many other places. She is the editor of Ilhéu, a new magazine dedicated to art and writing from the Atlantic regions, based in the Azores, where she lives with her four children and her husband.
Kathleen McCaul Moura is a writer, editor and researcher. She has published two novels, acclaimed by James Ellroy as a ‘stunning new voice’, and an anthology of new writing from megacities, which Mike Davis called ‘paradise and the inferno.’ She holds a Phd in Creative Writing from the internationally renowned centre of writing, the University of East Anglia, and a degree in English literature and language from Oxford University.
She trained as a journalist with the BBC, and worked as a reporter in Iraq, India, Kashmir, as well as for Al Jazeera English in Doha and London. Her non-fiction writing has appeared with The BBC, The Guardian, as well prestigious journals The London Review of Books and Granta Magazine, among many other places. She is the editor of Ilhéu, a new magazine dedicated to art and writing from the Atlantic regions, based in the Azores, where she lives with her four children and her husband.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
June 29, 2020
MEGACITY is a beautiful collection of writing that continues the work of the great writers in exploring how we fit as an individual in a city of millions.
It is a strange book to read given the current 2020 climate, yet it reminds of what we have given up to protect our friends and family, and also what we should change in the future.
It is a strange book to read given the current 2020 climate, yet it reminds of what we have given up to protect our friends and family, and also what we should change in the future.
Displaying 1 of 1 review