Institute for Development Studies, University of Nairobi

This paper argues the importance of the interplay of image and social reality in urban development in Kenya. The main body of the paper discusses one significant source of urban stereotypes — contemporary Kenyan fiction and especially the Kenyan urban novel. It is suggested that the use of this fictional material as sociological documents (and in association with other sociological materials) is useful. Further, it is hoped that the social scientist will be stimulated by exposure to this view of the city in fiction especially in terms of its convergence to and distortions of the social data with which he works.