An Atlas of Paratopias: Notes on a Work in Progress

This essay takes Italo Calvino’s work Invisible Cities and uses it as a basis to develop the concepts of re-enchantment and paratopia in short fiction. It looks at certain modes of short fiction (including folk horror, hauntology and—chiefly—dystopian short fiction) and finds them only partially adequate as a method of classifying or interpreting work. It then introduces the concept of re-enchantment as a method of seeing potential in place, then the idea of paratopia as a means of achieving re-enchantment. It goes on to look at various examples of literary paratopias, focusing on short stories by China Miéville (“In the Slopes”) and Jen Calleja (“Edit History”) in particular, then considers the author’s own work in progress, an experiment with short fictional paratopia in the area of Calderdale in West Yorkshire. It concludes with a wider call for the introduction of paratopian thinking to combat various present-day crises.