Which city are you in? How have you come to be here? What are the characters, voices, stories that you have come across in your city? Your experiences – the people and places you encounter, the things you hear and see, the thoughts and sensations you feel – are at once individual and also connected to countless others in cities everywhere. Your city is also the city.
These were the thoughts that inspired us to put together this collection. Through the voices and perspectives of many different writers, it offers readers a book that they can take with them into the city to experience it through stories.
You will not find in its pages any cities, landmarks, or even characters that are identified by name. These are stories about any city, every city in which you might find yourself. The story of the woman sitting in front of you on the bus, the waiter in your café, or even the spider on the pavement.
As you read them, maybe you will also start to see – in the streets and alleyways and cafés and hotels of this city, the one you are standing in now – the lines and traces of other cities: familiar cities, past cities, cities of the future, cities of the imagination.
We would like to invite you to share your experience of the city through your own photos. You can email them to us at StoryCities@gre.ac.uk, telling us if /it relates to a particular story in the book. Or share them via instagram: story_cities_book, twitter: @storycities #storycities or Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/StoryCities/
Rosamund Davies & Kam Rehal