This article explores perceptions and representations of Nigeria and Nigerians in the popular global imaginary. It analyses selected popular media narratives in order to foreground contradictions and paradoxes in the ways in which the country and people of Nigeria are discursively constructed. By doing so, it interrogates stereotypes of corruption and criminality as well as myths of exceptionalism about Nigeria and Nigerians originating from both within and outside the country. The analysis reveals that the generalised portrayal of Nigeria and Nigerians as exceptional social subjects is characterised by contradictions and inaccuracies in dominant representational practices and cannot be justified by the verifiable empirical information available on the country and its people.

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Since its launch in 1999, the annual Caine Prize for African short stories has assumed a dominant position on the continent’s literary landscape. It has been hailed for the exposure it provides for its winners who are mostly budding writers. Expectedly, it has also attracted stinging criticism, especially for what is perceived to be its legitimization of stereotypical narratives about Africa. In this article, I examine how the two winning entries of 2008 and 2011 represent contemporary African realities and in so doing reinforce the growing significance of the prize and the short story genre to modern African literary expression. I argue that, taken together, Henrietta Rose-Innes’ “Poison” (2007) and NoViolet Bulawayo’s “Hitting Budapest” (2010), both set in cities, contribute to problematic imaginings of African futures. Bulawayo does this through her representation of slum life and dystopian childhoods in Zimbabwe while Rose-Innes’s story speculates on the apocalyptic aftermath of a chemical explosion in post-apartheid South Africa. I highlight, also, how these two narratives reflect apparent relationships between the short story and the novel in contemporary African writing as well as the increasing role of the postcolonial city as a site from which unfavourable visions of postcolonial societies are generated.

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