Lagos has more shelf-space in the contemporary Nigerian novel than any other city in Africa. Read these before you arrive.
Welcome to Lagos by Chibundu Onuzo (2017). Five characters from different walks of Nigerian life converge on Lagos in this warm, funny, sharply political novel. The best introduction to the city's mood that a single book can offer.
Every Day is for the Thief by Teju Cole (2007). A short, lyrical novel — closer to a memoir — about a Nigerian returning to Lagos after fifteen years in America. Cole catches the rhythm and the moral compromises of the city better than anyone.
Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor (2014). A science-fiction novel in which something extraterrestrial lands in Lagos lagoon. The first chapter is one of the best openings written about the city.
Open City by Teju Cole (2011). New York more than Lagos, but the Nigerian narrator's flashbacks to a Lagos childhood and a Lagos return are among the best things ever written about the city.
On Black Sisters Street by Chika Unigwe (2007). Not strictly Lagos, but the lives of four Nigerian women who end up working as prostitutes in Antwerp begin in Lagos, and the chapters set there are unforgettable.