"A city does not consist merely of its landmarks, however skillfully skill·ful adj.

1. Possessing or exercising skill; expert. See Synonyms at proficient.
2. Characterized by, exhibiting, or requiring skill. their details can be recalled. A city is life in all its various permutations. It is places, people, trees, the smell of rain, the earth and time itself in a state of flux Noun 1. state of flux - a state of uncertainty about what should be done (usually following some important event) preceding the establishment of a new direction of action; "the flux following the death of the emperor" flux," writes Abd al Rahman Munif, one of the Arab world's most acclaimed writers and the 1992 winner of the Sultan al Uways Award—the Arab equivalent of the Nobel PrizeNobel Prize, award given for outstanding achievement in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, peace, or literature. The awards were established by the will of Alfred Nobel, who left a fund to provide annual prizes in the five areas listed above. ..... Click the link for more information. for Literature. In these memoirs the novelist, best known for his stories of political repression Political repression is the oppression or persecution of an individual or group for political reasons, particularly for the purpose of restricting or preventing their ability to take part in the political life of society. and exile, describes his childhood in the Jordanian capital of Amman during the 1940s when the city was little more than a large village. He evokes a distant world through richly detailed memories of his childhood, family friends and daily living and lays before us the rituals of life and death, of feast days and harvest, doctors, school and games under the shadows of the distant World War and the looming crisis of the loss of Palestine