{"product_id":"lagos-supernatural-city-9781787386945","title":"Lagos: Supernatural City","description":"This is a frantic, mystical journey through Africa's biggest metropolis: Lagos. Going beyond the popular images of mad traffic or crowded slums, it tells of the incredible feats Lagosians must pull off to survive their broken-down city. It also reveals the secret enabling them to cope with the chaos and precarity of Nigeria's most populous centre: spirituality. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eA 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 and transformation into luxury waterside flats. A priestess to a river goddess selling sand to feed Lagos's voracious construction boom. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIf anything unites these disparate figures, it is their belief in unseen forces, and their commitment to worshipping them--whether at secret shrines to West African gods and ancestors, or in the iron-roofed churches and domed mosques dotting the Lagos skyline. 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.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTim Cocks is a British-born Reuters journalist of South African parentage. Currently based in Johannesburg, he was formerly Reuters West \u0026amp; Central Africa bureau chief, based in Dakar, following four years in Lagos as Nigeria bureau chief. He holds an MPhil in philosophy from the University of Oxford.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Hurst \u0026 Co.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50497263304978,"sku":"9781787386945","price":26.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_82f10e51-4684-475c-b9e6-a5b45b4538a0.jpg?v=1730709590","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/lagos-supernatural-city-9781787386945","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}