Lagos: Supernatural City book launch w/ Tim Cocks and Alexis Akwagyiram

Join us for the launch of Tim Cocks’s Lagos: Supernatural City, an intimate portrait of life in one of the most vibrant cities on Earth. Tim will be joined in conversation by Alexis Akwagyiram, and we’ll have copies available to purchase while you sip on a glass of wine and enjoy the evening’s discussion!

About the book

This is a frantic, mystical journey through Africa’s biggest metropolis: Lagos. Going beyond the popular images of mad traffic or crowded slums, we learn of the incredible feats Lagosians pull off to survive their broken-down city, and the secret enabling them to cope with the chaos and precarity of Nigeria’s most populous centre: spirituality.

A female street fighter in a male-dominated mafia extortion business. Two powerful chiefs locked in a deadly feud over billion-dollar real estate. An oil tycoon who gambles her fortune on televangelists’ prophecies. A rubbish scavenger dreaming of a reggae career. A fisherman’s son trying to save Makoko, the ‘floating slum’, from demolition. A priestess to a river goddess selling sand to feed Lagos’s construction boom.

Belief in unseen forces unites these figures, as does their commitment to worshipping them–at shrines, in mosques and in churches. In this extraordinary city, Tim Cocks uncovers something universal about human nature in the face of danger and high uncertainty: our tendency to place faith in a realm beyond.

About the author

Tim Cocks is a British-born journalist of South African parentage. Currently based in Johannesburg, he was formerly Reuters West & Central Africa bureau chief, based in Dakar, following four years in Lagos as Nigeria bureau chief. He holds an MA in Philosophy & Theology from the University of Oxford.

About the speakers

Alexis Akwagyiram is a multimedia journalist with extensive experience working in print, online, television and radio. He specialises in current affairs related to Africa and its diaspora, and is currently digital editor on the World desk of the Financial Times. Prior to joining the FT last year, Alexis was the Nigeria bureau chief for Reuters. He reported on a range of issues including economic trends, politics, and the arts during his six years in the country.