Book Club Guide

Invisible Cities

by Italo Calvino · 1972 · Classics

Key themes

The city as a form of desire — what places reveal about those who imagine them
Memory, identity and the city that holds the past
The frame as meaning: Marco Polo and Kublai Khan at the edges of an empire in decline

About this book

Marco Polo describes to Kublai Khan a series of impossible cities — each one a meditation on memory, desire, time, death or trade. Each city is named after a woman. Calvino's novel is a thought experiment in literary form: a book of prose poems that together constitute a meditation on what cities are and what they contain that is also a meditation on fiction itself.

Published in Italian in 1972, Invisible Cities has been translated into many languages and is one of the most admired short works of postmodern literature. Calvino said the book expressed what he found 'seductive and threatening' about cities.

Discussion questions

Each city is a different thought experiment — on memory, on desire, on trade, on the dead. How does Calvino create coherence across these variations — and do the cities accumulate into an argument?
The frame narrative of Marco Polo describing cities to Kublai Khan is itself a meditation on empire and loss. What does the frame add — and does the novel require it?
Every city is named after a woman. What does Calvino achieve through this — and what does it say about cities and femininity?
The novel is sometimes described as postmodern and sometimes as purely beautiful. Do these characterisations contradict each other?
Invisible Cities is one of those books people recommend to almost everyone. What does it offer across such a range of readers — and what is the risk of such broad appeal?