Kontestacja przestrzeni w "Niewidzialnych miastach" Italo Calvino

Abstract

This article presents an analysis of the complex relation between the spatial and narrative aspects of human identity as seen in Italo Calvino's novel Invisible Cities. The cities described in the novel exemplify the crisis of the tamed and objectified narrative space which serves as the basis of human existence. This process comprises: the contestation of history (the relation between space and the linear time), the contestation of narrative (the human ability to imbue space with meaning) and, lastly, the contestation of the identity (the ability to build an identity based on domesticated space).