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.
