Writing the City

Arguing that classic geographical descriptions of the city fail to accomodate the crucial aspect of human life, this visualizes the city through the hopes, aspirations, disappointments and pains of international novelists and creative writers.
"The expression of human experience it embodies ...includes all personal history". Saul Bellow's view of the city is far from that of classic geographical descriptions which look at growth or decline, demographic patterns, traffic flows and economic potential: these empirically conceived models of urban geography fail to accommodate the crucial human aspect of life. Located at the interface of geography and literature, "Writing the City" visualizes the city through hopes, aspirations, disappointments and pains of international novelists and creative writers. From Manchester, Montreal and Sydney to Osaka, Varanasi and Odessa, cities become more than their built environment, more than a set of class or economic relationships: they are also an experience to be lived, suffered and undergone. Thus cities are seen in terms of the innocence of an Eden now lost, a threat of sinful Babylon and the promise of a New Jerusalem. Simpson-Housley has written "Antarctica" (Routledge, 1992), "A Few Acres of Snow", with G. Norcliffe, (Dundum Press, 1992), and "Sacred Places and Profane Spaces", with J. Scott, (Greenwood Press, 1991). Preston has written "The Literature of Place", with N. Page, (Mac