Tales from ten cities ... Decapolis is a book which imagines the city otherwise. Bringing together ten writers from across Europe, it offers snapshots of their cities, freezing for a moment the characters and complexities that define them.
In Amsterdam every Friday night, a lonely woman cooks for her men - a circle of middle-aged bachelors. In Barcelona, a self-regarding poet tries to capture the essence of the city in an eleven-word lyric. In Reykjavik, an unemployed journalist wanders through the deserted buildings of the newspaper he once wrote for. In all cases, these are cities in states of transition: Zagreb in the shadow of the Balkan conflict; Manchester on the cusp of social and economic change; Berlin with half its industrial buildings abandoned like the Mary Celeste.
Highlighting a cross-section of cultures, voices, landscapes, and recent histories of 10 major European cities, this short fiction collection presents new perspectives on the urban experience. Depicting characters that are only loosely connected to the societies that they describe, these tales offer snapshots of each city through isolated glimpses enlivened by surrealist wit—a lonely woman in Amsterdam cooks for a circle of middle-aged bachelors; a poet in Barcelona tries to capture the essence of the city in 11 words; and an unemployed journalist wanders in his deserted office in Reykjavik.
