Invisible Cities

In Invisible Cities (1972), Italo Calvino imagines a series of conversations between the weary emperor Kublai Khan and the Venetian traveler Marco Polo. Through Polo’s poetic descriptions of fantastical cities—each reflecting human desires, fears, and memories—the book becomes a meditation on imagination, language, and the fragility of civilization. Rather than a traditional narrative, it unfolds as a mosaic of dreamlike vignettes that explore how we shape, and are shaped by, the places we inhabit.