Chapter 13 ‘London’s destructions, dreamed-up and real’:1 The Apocalyptic City of China Miéville
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In various guises, London has always been the preferred topic and setting of British writer China Miéville. While it is predominantly fantasy fiction, Miéville’s writing commonly deals with the actual city and its problems, often depicting it as a dangerously fragmented place at the brink of catastrophe. This portrayal is distinctly opposed to the officialised image of London as ‘the greatest city on earth’, most notably propagated by Mayor Boris Johnson. This article analyses how Miéville’s novels – specifically Un Lun Dun (2007), The City & the City (2009) and Kraken (2010) – offer a distinctly apocalyptic view on London, criticising its socio-political structure as well as the official discourse on the city in the run-up to the 2012 Olympics.