Italo Calvino · 1972 · global

Italo Calvino's 1972 masterpiece, less a novel than a hall of mirrors, in which Marco Polo describes fifty-five fantastical cities to the emperor Kublai Khan, none of which appear on any map. There is no journey here in the ordinary sense, only an imaginative leap from Venice to the heart of the Khan's empire, and the dawning sense that every invisible city is, in some hidden way, a reflection of a single real one. Mapped here as the conceit it is: one dreamed line from Venice to the great court.

1. 1
   Venice

   The young Venetian Marco Polo arrives at the court of the aging emperor Kublai Khan, and begins to describe the cities of his travels.

2. 2
   Khanbaliq

   In the Khan's twilight garden, Polo conjures city after impossible city, until it becomes clear that each one he describes is, in some secret way, his own Venice.