A slighted wife escapes her wealthy family for the evening and stumbles into the city’s red-light district… The head of security at Barcelona’s container port searches for a figure that only he has seen sneak in… An elderly woman brings home a machine that will turn her body into atoms, so she can leave behind a city that is no longer recognisable… Historically, Barcelona is a city of resistance and independence; a focal point for Catalan identity, as well as the capital of Spanish republicanism. Nestled between the Mediterranean coast and mountains, this burgeoning city has also been home to some of the greatest names in modern art and architecture, and attracts visitors and migrants from all over the world. As a result, the city is a melting-pot of cultures, and the stories gathered here offer a miscellany of form and genre, fittingly reminiscent of one of Gaudi’s mosaics. From the boy-giant outgrowing his cramped flat on the city’s outskirts, to the love affair that begins in a launderette, we meet characters who are reclaiming the independence of their city by challenging common misconceptions and telling its myriad truths.

Beijing may be known as the engine\-house of the largest and most economically influential country in the world, but in amongst the hustle and bustle of this ever\-expanding city is an equally burgeoning literary scene. This latest instalment in Comma's popular 'Reading the City' series, offers a cross\-section of this writing community, giving readers the opportunity to dive beneath the noisy urban exterior and see the city from the quieter, personal perspective of its many residents. Two former school friends bump into each other and catch up fleetingly in Beijing's busiest subway station; a journalist investigating a counterfeiters flooding the city with fake IDs begins to struggle with his own identity; the appearance of Maradona at a friendly tournament sparks hysteria among the city's new football fans... The characters in these stories may struggle with the pressures of a city that grows less and less forgiving every year, but, through creativity and humour, each one refuses to let themselves be lost in it.

Birmingham is a writer’s city with a long tradition of distinctive literary subcultures. Long\-established novelists such as David Lodge and Jim Crace have spent most of their writing lives there, and the city continues to support and inspire a new generation of voices. Bringing together fiction from some of the city’s most talented writers, The Book of Birmingham showcases and celebrates original and unusual writing, in all its forms. Few cities have undergone such a radical transformation over the last few decades as Birmingham. Culturally and architecturally, it has been in a state of perpetual flux and regeneration, with new communities moving in, then out, and iconic post\-war landmarks making way for brighter\-coloured, 21st century flourishes. Much like the city itself, the characters in the stories gathered here are often living through moments of profound change, closing in on a personal or societal turning point, that carries as much threat as it does promise. Set against key moments of history – from Malcolm X’s visit to Smethwick in 1965, to the Handsworth riots two decades later, from the demise of the city’s manufacturing in the 70s and 80s, to the on\-going tensions between communities in recent years – these stories celebrate the cultural dynamism that makes this complex, often divided ‘second city’ far more than just the sum of its parts.

A city much celebrated for its culture of resistance and community, Bristol has fostered a progressive attitude amongst its people. Its voice is loud and singular. But since the regeneration of the harbourside and years of private development in the centre, it’s also a divided city, with a fifth of its children being reported as living in low\-income families. From the elusive angel who turns up at a stagnant café along the Malago River, to the witch trying to expel a spirit from her granddaughter at their home on Dundry Hill, the stories gathered in this anthology lean into the understated magic of Bristol and maintain an air of mystery that will leave readers wondering who exactly makes up this city – and how they stay so powerful.

A corrupt police officer trawls the streets of Cairo on the most important assignment of his career: the answer to the truth of all existence… A young journalist struggles over the obituary of a nightclub dancer… A man slowly loses his mind in one of the city’s new desert developments... There is a saying that, whoever you are, if you come to Cairo you will find a hundred people just like you. For over a thousand years, the city on the banks of the Nile has welcomed travellers from around the world. But in recent years Cairo has also been a stage for expressions of short\-lived hope, political disappointments and a violent repression that can barely be written about. These ten short stories showcase some of the most exciting, emerging voices in Egypt, guiding us through one of the world’s largest and most historic cities as it is today – from its slums to its villas, its bars and its balconies, through its infamous traffic. Appearing in English for the first time, these stories evoke the sadness and loss of the modern city, as well as its humour and beauty.

Dhaka may be one of the most densely\-populated cities in the world \- noisy, grid\-locked, short on public amenities, and blighted with sprawling slums \- but, as these stories show, it is also one of the most colourful and chaotically joyful places you could possibly call home. Slum kids and film stars, day\-dreaming rich boys, gangsters and former freedom fighters all rub shoulders in these street, often with Dhaka's trademark rickshaws ferrying them to and fro across cultural, economic and ethnic divides. Just like Dhaka itself, these stories thrive on the rich interplay between folk culture and high art; they both cherish and lampoon the city's great tradition of political protest, and they pay trubute to a nation that was borne out of a love of language, one language in particular, Bangla (from which all these stories have been translated). Featuring: Wasi Ahmed Shaheen Akhtar Salma Bani Bipradash Barua Akhteruzzaman Elias Anwara Syed Haq Parvez Hossain Syed Manzoorul Islam Moinul Ahsan Saber Rashida Sultana

Bringing together a dozen of Palestine’s greatest modern prose writers, this unique anthology sets contemporary stories against the backdrop of one of the world’s most talked\-about cities, presenting them in English translation for the first time. Together, these stories will enable English\-speaking readers to go beyond the global media coverage and enter into the daily life of ordinary characters struggling to live with dignity in what is effectively the world’s largest prison. The authors range from highly acclaimed writers to exciting new voices in Arabic literature, including the “Father of the Palestinian” short story, Zaki Al Ela, and a new generation of young women bloggers and activists, such as Mona Abu Sharikhm, Dawlat Al Masri, and Najla Attalah.

The stories gathered in this anthology reflect the many complex challenges Havana’s citizens have had to endure as a result of their country’s political isolation—from the hardships of the "Special Period," to the pitfalls of Cuba’s schizophrenic currency system, to the indignities of becoming a cheap tourist destination for well-heeled Westerners. Moving through various moments in its recent history, as well as through different neighbourhoods—from the prefab, Soviet-era maze of Alamar, to the bars and nightclubs of the Malecón and Vedado—these stories also demonstrate the defiancé of surviving decades of economic disappointment with a flair for the comic, the surreal and the fantastical that remains as fresh as the first dreams of revolution.

Both intelligent and accessible, this collection pulls readers into the heart of Turkish culture, politics, and history through multifarious narrative frameworks. The testimonials, memories, and confessions that weave through the pages not only birth a new concept of Turkish life from previously unsung voices, but also tell universal truths about living to which anyone can relate—regardless of background, language, or creed. Providing an enriched experience and taste of modern urban Turkey, these short stories paint Istanbul with many colors, shades, and tones with a luxury that cannot always be afforded by the novel.

Spanning the last five decades of Liverpool's history, the specially commissioned pieces in this collection revel in the story of the city itself—the legendary life and culture that gave the world The Beatles, along with the struggle and tragedy that comes with growth and change in the city's communities. Compiled to coincide with Liverpool being named the European Capital of Culture, these stories include new works by Booker Prize–winner Barry Unsworth, Whitbred Poetry Prize–winner Roger McGough, and legendary horror writer Ramsey Campbell—all of whom provide insightful and colorful perspectives on Liverpudlian life.

Khartoum, according to one theory, takes its name from the Beja word hartooma, meaning ‘meeting place’. Geographically, culturally and historically, the Sudanese capital is certainly that: a meeting place of the Blue and White Niles, a confluence of Arabic and African histories, and a destination point for countless refugees displaced by Sudan’s long, troubled history of forced migration. In the pages of this book – the first major anthology of Sudanese stories to be translated into English – the city also stands as a meeting place for ideas: where the promise and glamour of the big city meets its tough social realities; where traces of a colonial past are still visible in day\-to\-day life; where the dreams of a young boy, playing in his father’s shop, act out a future that may one day be his. Diverse literary styles also come together here: the political satire of Ahmed al\-Malik; the surrealist poetics of Bushra al\-Fadil; the social realism of the first postcolonial authors; and the lyrical abstraction of the new ‘Iksir’ generation. As with any great city, it is from these complex tensions that the best stories begin.

The thoughtful stories featured in this collection capture the soul of the city of Leeds by tracing the unique contours of 50 years of social and economic change. In one story the Millgarth Police Station reverberates with the early adrenaline rush of a case they won’t close for years. Another tells of a teenage boy who trails the city center bars of the 1980s in thrall to his hero, a Leeds United football hooligan. Despite being products of their time, these stories remain distinct from the larger events and wider currents that have shaped the cultural landscape of today’s Leeds, a modern city with both problems and promise. Featured authors include Tony Harrison, Jeremy Dyson, Shamshad Khan, Ian Duhig, David Peace, Susan Everett, M. Y. Alam, Andrea Semple, Martyn Bedford, and Tom Palmer.

Manchester has a reputation for being one of the UK’s loudest cities. From its smoggy inception as the first industrial city to its proud traditions of protest and activism, to blazing a trail in the British music scene, the city has always been defined by an inexorable sense of urgency and activity. No wonder, then, that it feels compelled to shout so loudly about its accomplishments. In stark contrast, The Book of Manchester is more concerned with dialling down that sometimes deafening hubris. As international investment pours into the city, reshaping its skyline, these stories ask: at what cost? From the pair of homeless friends intent on shattering the ‘Manctopia’ property dream, to the middle\-aged fangirl feeling abandoned by both her husband and her city, we follow the struggles of ordinary residents navigating a city in dramatic flux – stories of thrilling quietude that might otherwise be lost amid the roar and clamour.

The original Northern Powerhouse, Newcastle upon Tyne has witnessed countless transformations over the last century or so, from its industrial heyday, when Tyneside engineering and innovation led the world, through decades of post\-industrial decline, and underinvestment, to its more recent reinvention as a cultural destination for the North. The ten short stories gathered here all feature characters in search of something, a new reality, a space, perhaps, in which to rediscover themselves: from the call\-centre worker imagining herself far away from the claustrophobic realities of her day job, to the woman coming to terms with an ex\-lover who’s moved on all too quickly, to the man trying to outrun his mother’s death on Town Moor. The Book of Newcastle brings together some of the city’s most renowned literary talents, along with exciting new voices, proving that while Newcastle continues to feel the effects of its lost industrial past, it is also a city striving for a future that brims with promise.

An ex\-con on compassionate release revisits his old haunts, only to feel dispossessed by how much the city has changed... The son of political dissidents in Soviet\-era Prague is condemned to a life of menial jobs, like working at a local abattoir, unable to imagine his prospects ever improving... A young shop assistant in a tourist\-friendly antique shop imagines what Prague would now look like if Czechoslovakia had stood up to the Nazis... The stories collected in this anthology show Prague to be a city of myriad layers and multiple histories. Famous for its untouched, Gothic and Baroque architecture and its trapped\-in\-aspic charm, it is also a place that has lived through numerous traumas over the last century and learned to conceal its scars, perhaps a little too well. Just as its landmarks should be preserved, so should these hidden histories, and sometimes the best place to preserve them is in stories. Translated by Alžběta Belánová, Geoffrey Chew, Melvyn Clarke, Graeme Dibble, Andrew Oakland, Justin Quinn, Julia and Peter Sherwood, Paul Wilson and Alex Zucker.

A coffee seller waits all day for one of his customers to ask him how he is, until eventually he just tells the city itself... A teenager is ordered off a bus at a checkpoint and told he must kiss a complete stranger if he wants the bus to be let through... A woman pilgrimages to the Cave of the Prophets, to pray for rain for her tiny patch of land, knowing it will take more than water to save it... Unlike most other Palestinian cities, Ramallah is a relatively new town, a de facto capital of the West Bank allowed to thrive after the Oslo Peace Accords, but just as quickly hemmed in and suffocated by the Occupation as the Accords have failed. Perched along the top of a mountainous ridge, it plays host to many contradictions: traditional Palestinian architecture jostling against aspirational developments and cultural initiatives, a thriving nightlife in one district, with much more conservative, religious attitudes in the next. Most striking however – as these stories show – is the quiet dignity, resilience and humour of its people; citizens who take their lives into their hands every time they travel from one place to the next, who continue to live through countless sieges, and yet still find the time, and resourcefulness, to create. Translated by Basma Ghalayini, Alexander Hong, Thoraya El\-Rayyes, Mohammed Ghalaieny, Raph Cormack, Adam Talib, Yasmine Seale, Andrew Leber, Emre Bennett \& Raph Cohen.

Featuring Friðgeir Einarsson, Kristín Eiríksdóttir, Þórarinn Eldjárn, Einar Már Guðmundsson, Björn Halldórsson, Fríða Ísberg, Auður Jónsdóttir, Guðrún Eva Mínervudóttir, Andri Snær Magnason \& Ágúst Borgþór Sverrisson Reluctant to observe a new family tradition, a boy finds himself stranded outside a graveyard on the night before Christmas... Three farming brothers, forced to relocate to the city by poor harvests, discover an unexpected demand for their green\-fingered talents... Residents of a new apartment block are woken in the early hours by the eerie sound of a table saw that once operated on the building’s grounds... Iceland is a land of stories; from the epic sagas of its mythic past, to its claim today of being home to more writers, more published books and more avid readers, per head, than anywhere in the world. As its capital (and indeed only city), Reykjavik has long been an inspiration for these stories. But, as this collection demonstrates, this fishing\-village\-turned\-metropolis at the farthest fringe of Europe has been both revered and reviled by Icelanders over the years. The tension between the city and the surrounding countryside, its rural past and urban present, weaves its way through The Book of Reykjavik, forming an outline of a fragmented city marked by both contradiction and creativity. Includes a foreword written by award\-winning Icelandic author Sjón. Translated from the Icelandic by Victoria Cribb, Philip Roughton, Lytton Smith, Meg Matich and Larissa Kyzer. Published with the support of the Icelandic Literature Center.

This diverse, literary patchwork of Rio de Janeiro contains 10 short stories set in varied quarters of the city drawing on its inhabitants' experiences of recent historical and cultural changes. From Copacabana's thriving LGBT scene in the 1960s where the military dictatorship simultaneously terrorizes and represses politically\-minded citizens, to the exhausted labourers constructing the Rio\-Niteroi bridge \- 'the pride of Brazil' \- at gunpoint in 1974, to contemporary life in the neighbourhood of Leblon, where a call girl trying to get to a party reluctantly accepts a very strange job for the evening. The ten stories in this anthology bring to life the complex and ever\-changing face of Rio de Janeiro behind the images of slums, carnivals and the sex trade. Featuring stories by award\-winning, leading authors, screenwriters, journalists and playwrights, including 2013 International Emmy Award\-winner, João Ximenes Braga.

As the end of the world arrives in downtown Shanghai, one man’s only wish is to return a library book... When a publisher agrees to let a star author use his company’s attic to write in, little does he suspect this will become the author’s permanent residence... As Shanghai succumbs to a seemingly apocalyptic deluge, a man takes refuge in his bathtub, only to find himself, moments later, floating through the city’s streets... The characters in this literary exploration of one of the world’s biggest cities are all on a mission. Whether it is responding to events around them, or following some impulse of their own, they are defined by their determination – a refusal to lose themselves in a city that might otherwise leave them anonymous, disconnected, alone. From the neglected mother whose side\-hustle in collecting sellable waste becomes an obsession, to the schoolboy determined to end a long\-standing feud between his family and another, these characters show a defiancé that reminds us why Shanghai – despite its hurtling economic growth –remains an epicentre for individual creativity.

Featuring Margaret Drabble, Tim Etchells, Naomi Frisby, Philip Hensher, Helen Mort, Geoff Nicholson, Gregory Norminton, Johny Pitts, Désirée Reynolds \& Karl Riordan Known for both its industrial roots and arboreal abundance, Sheffield has always been a city of two halves. Bringing together fiction from some of the city’s most celebrated writers, The Book of Sheffield traces the unique contours that decades of social and economic change can impress on a city. From the city’s grand villas, elegant parks and botanical gardens to the brutalist 1960s high\-rise estates, these stories take the reader a literary tour of this vibrant, but often divided contemporary city. Evoking the past, present and future of Sheffield, this is a timely collection of new stories from ten writers for whom the city is \- or once was \- home, and who have found it's landscape and history, the city and its surroundings, ripe for creative interpretation.

A rookie reporter, searching for his first big story, re\-opens a murder case that once saw crowds of protestors surround Tbilisi's central police station... A piece of romantic graffiti chalked outside a new apartment block sends its residents into a social media frenzy, trying to identify the two lovers implicated by it.... A war\-orphaned teenager looks after his dying sister in an abandoned railway carriage on the edge of town, hoping that someday soon the state will take care of them... In the 26 years since Georgia declared independence from the Soviet Union, the country and its capital, Tbilisi, have endured unimaginable hardships: one coup d'état, two wars with Russia, the cancer of organised crime, and prolonged periods of brutalising, economic depression. Now, as the city begins to flourish again – drawing hordes of tourists with its eclectic architecture and famous, welcoming spirit – it's difficult to reconcile the recent past with this glamorous and exotic present. With wit, warmth, heartbreaking realism, and a distinctly Georgian sense of neighbourliness, these ten stories do just that. 'Acts as an introduction to a literature quite neglected by the Anglophone world... the language consistently has the direct, clean and unadorned quality of great fiction.' – Luke Kennard. ‘A soaring, searing collection – important new stories that are sure to live long in the memory.’ – Eley Williams, author of Attrib. Published with the support of the Georgian National Book Center and the Ministry of Culture and Monument Protection of Georgia.

Tehran is Iran’s most secular and liberal city. It is a city that is so much more than the usual chaotic maze of concrete and traffic jams thick with air pollution. This is the beating heart of Iran, a creative tour de force and the place to be to get a handle on modern Iran and what its future will likely be. The outside world focuses on extremes in Iran, but what the included writers set out to portray are their inner stories, and where they stand in all of this; their identity, their connections and their private lives. These are the stories till now untold because of a Western focus on only the big, bold issues in Iran. What may surprise the reader is the similarities between their lives and our own. Ten short stories, showcasing some of the most exciting, emerging voices in Iran today, guide the reader through the most populous city in Iran and Western Asia, and the second\-largest metropolitan area in the Middle East today.

A shape\-shifter arrives at Tokyo harbour in human form, set to embark on an unstoppable rampage through the city’s train network… A young woman is accompanied home one night by a reclusive student, and finds herself lured into a flat full of eerie Egyptian artefacts… A man suspects his young wife’s obsession with picnicking every weekend in the city’s parks hides a darker motive… At first, Tokyo appears in these stories as it does to many outsiders: a city of bewildering scale, awe\-inspiring modernity, peculiar rules, unknowable secrets and, to some extent, danger. Characters observe their fellow citizens from afar, hesitant to stray from their daily routines to engage with them. But Tokyo being the city it is, random encounters inevitably take place – a naïve book collector, mistaken for a French speaker, is drawn into a world he never knew existed; a woman seeking psychiatric help finds herself in a taxi with an older man wanting to share his own peculiar revelations; a depressed divorcee accepts an unexpected lunch invitation to try Thai food for the very first time… The result in each story is a small but crucial change in perspective, a sampling of the unexpected yet simple pleasure of other people’s company. As one character puts it, ‘The world is full of delicious things, you know.’

An inspector rages against the announcement that police HQ is to relocate—the way so many of the city’s residents already have—to the mainland... An aspiring author struggles with the inexorable creep of rentalisation that has forced him to share his apartment, and life, with ‘global pilgrims’... An ageing painter rails against the liberties taken by tourists, but finds his anger undermined by his own childhood memories of the place... The Venice presented in these stories is a far cry from the ‘impossibly beautiful,’ frozen\-in\-time city so familiar to the thousands who flock there every year—a city about which, Henry James once wrote, ‘there is nothing new to be said.’ Instead, they represent the other Venice, the one tourists rarely see: the real, everyday city that Venetians have to live and work in. Rather than a city in stasis, we see it at a crossroads, fighting to regain its radical, working\-class soul, regretting the policies that have seen it turn slowly into a theme park, and taking the pandemic as an opportunity to rethink what kind of city it wants to be.