40 Fun Facts About The City & the City

In The City & the City, what must citizens of Besźel do to anything belonging to Ul Qoma?

Unsee it: residents notice the other city's people, cars and buildings just enough to dodge them, then let them fade from mind. Failing to do so is breach, an offence worse than murder.

Which actor co-wrote the novel The Book of Elsewhere with The City & the City author China Miéville?

Keanu Reeves named Miéville as his dream collaborator for a novel spun off from his BRZRKR comics. He doubted the prize-winning author would say yes.

For which terminally ill relative did China Miéville write The City & the City as a gift?

His mother liked his books but preferred detective stories, so Miéville wrote one that was exactly her sort of thing and exactly his. He read mysteries in bulk to get the form right.

In The City & the City, what does Borlú finally learn about Orciny, the rumoured third city?

It is an elaborate hoax: the secret city is bait, a story used to trick a student into smuggling ancient relics out of Ul Qoma for a foreign corporation.

Which kind of crime novel does The City & the City blend with its strange, fantastical setting?

Police procedural is the form Miéville borrowed, and Publishers Weekly called the book an outstanding take on it. Interviews, paperwork and rows over jurisdiction drive the plot.

In The City & the City, which group besides tourists does Breach treat leniently for small breaches?

Children may be forgiven a small breach, since telling the two cities apart is a skill drilled in from an early age. Adults who breach are usually taken away and never seen again.

What was Mahalia Geary, the murder victim of The City & the City, studying for her PhD in Ul Qoma?

Archaeology took her to an Ul Qoman site whose ancient finds seem far too advanced for their era. Her talk on a rumoured hidden city once caused outrage at a conference.

Which actor plays Inspector Tyador Borlú in the BBC's adaptation of The City & the City?

David Morrissey, who played Gordon Brown in The Deal, led the BBC Two serial. Miéville himself worked on the production as a consultant.

In which London romantic comedy did The City & the City author China Miéville appear as an extra?

Notting Hill cast Miéville and his then partner as extras. He later joked that the film was a dystopia set in an ethnically cleansed city.

How did the parents of China Miéville, author of The City & the City, choose his first name?

From a dictionary: his parents were hunting for a beautiful word and landed on China. He was born in Norwich and grew up in London.

Which place in The City & the City is the only legal crossing between Besźel and Ul Qoma?

Copula Hall stands in both cities under a single name. Travellers who pass through come out at the very spot they started from, only now in the other city.

Which term does The City & the City use for areas lying wholly in the other city, to be ignored?

Alter areas belong entirely to the neighbouring city, so they must be avoided and ignored even when they are inches away. Streets shared by both cities are crosshatched; those in your own are total.

In The City & the City, which body of 42 members must agree before Breach can be invoked?

The Oversight Committee takes 21 members from each city. Some of them resent calling in Breach at all, seeing it as an alien power to which both cities sign away their sovereignty.

Which Besźel police unit does Inspector Tyador Borlú work for in The City & the City?

The Extreme Crime Squad, ECS for short, belongs to the Besź force known as the policzai. Borlú expects to hand the Geary case over to Breach, but the handover never comes.

Which constable works the Mahalia Geary murder case beside Inspector Borlú in The City & the City?

Lizbyet Corwi knows the rough district where the body is dumped and is first to doubt her colleagues' lazy theory about the victim. Borlú comes to rely on her skills.

In The City & the City, which Ul Qoman detective works with Borlú once the case crosses the border?

Qussim Dhatt greets Borlú with a warning that he is only a guest and consultant in Ul Qoma. The two bicker, then agree to put their differences aside and work together.

The City & the City tied for the Hugo Award for Best Novel with which biopunk story set in Thailand?

The Windup Girl, Paolo Bacigalupi's debut, finished level in the voting, so both books took the Hugo. It also beat Miéville's novel to that year's Nebula Award.

In The City & the City, who is finally exposed as the killer of the student Mahalia Geary?

David Bowden wrote the book that made Orciny famous, then drew Mahalia into a smuggling scheme. He killed her in a fury once she worked out the truth.

Which corporation in The City & the City is behind the smuggling of ancient relics out of Ul Qoma?

Sear and Core worked through a Besź politician to get the relics out of the dig, with a student as its unwitting courier. Its executive slips away at the end and is never punished.

In The City & the City, what happens to Yolanda Rodriguez as Borlú tries to smuggle her into Besźel?

She is shot dead by a gunman just as the group reaches the crossing, and the detective escorting her is wounded. Borlú then commits a violent breach of his own and wakes as a prisoner.

In The City & the City, which Breach operative, known only by an alias, takes charge of Borlú?

Ashil is only the name the man asks Borlú to call him. Moving as Breach, the pair pass through Besźel and Ul Qoma at once, and no citizen can properly see them.

In the novel The City & the City, which Besź politician admits arranging the relic-smuggling scheme?

Mikhel Buric, a social democrat, boasts that the scheme enriched Besźel at Ul Qoma's expense. He dies in the gunfight that follows his confession.

In The City & the City, what proves the van carrying the body crossed the border legally?

A videotape shows the van entering Besźel through the official checkpoint. With no breach to punish, the case stays with Borlú, who has to follow it into Ul Qoma himself.

In The City & the City, what do unificationists engineer that forces both cities into lockdown?

A bus crash between two coachloads of refugees sets off a massive breach. It erupts just as Breach agrees to move against the smugglers.

How does Mahalia Geary's killer try to slip away at the climax of The City & the City?

Walking in neither place, he moves so neutrally that nobody can tell whether he is in Besźel or Ul Qoma. Borlú ends the stalemate by forcing him to breach.

In The City & the City, what was lying on top of the murdered woman when police found her?

A mattress, soaking wet, covered the body on a patch of waste ground between two buildings. The teenagers who called it in had seen an animal mauling the corpse.

The university where Mahalia Geary studies in The City & the City is based in which country?

Canada is home to Prince of Wales University, which keeps a campus in Ul Qoma. Mahalia herself is American, and her parents travel to Besźel to view her body.

In the novel The City & the City, which alphabet is used to write Illitan, the language of Ul Qoma?

Latin letters are used for Illitan, while Besź has a Greek-derived script that resembles Cyrillic. The two languages share a root and are partly mutually intelligible.

In The City & the City, what is sent to one academic at Mahalia Geary's workplace in Ul Qoma?

A bomb turns up, built to kill one chosen person and carrying a line from a patriotic Ul Qoman song. Its intended target goes missing soon afterwards.

The City & the City author China Miéville holds a London School of Economics PhD in which subject?

International law was his field, and his thesis was published as Between Equal Rights, a Marxist account of the subject. His first degree, at Cambridge, was in social anthropology.

For which left-wing grouping did The City & the City author China Miéville stand for Parliament?

The Socialist Alliance put him up in Regent's Park and Kensington North, where he took 1.2 per cent of the vote. The seat stayed with Labour.

China Miéville, author of The City & the City, has said he plans to write a novel in every what?

Genre by genre is the plan: Iron Council was his Western, and The City & the City is his detective noir. He has also written comics and a picture book.

Which loosely defined literary movement counts The City & the City's China Miéville as a member?

New Weird got its name from M. John Harrison, who coined the label in his introduction to Miéville's novella The Tain. Its writers cross freely between horror and speculative fiction.

The City & the City gave China Miéville a record third win of which science fiction prize?

The Arthur C. Clarke Award had already gone to his Perdido Street Station and Iron Council, which made him the first author to win the British prize three times.

Which creator of the fantasy antihero Elric reviewed The City & the City for The Guardian?

Michael Moorcock wrote that the book proved Miéville as intelligent as he is original. Miéville, for his part, lists the older writer among his literary heroes.

A Guardian review said The City & the City recalled which Graham Greene thriller of occupied Vienna?

The Third Man came to the reviewer's mind because of the book's featureless concrete, rattling trams and tired office equipment. He could almost hear a zither playing.

The BBC's The City & the City was filmed around Manchester and which other English city?

Liverpool and Manchester supplied the streets for both fictional cities. On screen Besźel was tinted in soft yellows and browns, Ul Qoma in bright reds and blues.

Which co-writer of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas scripted the BBC's The City & the City?

Tony Grisoni had to go to union arbitration to get his credit on that Terry Gilliam film. He had earlier adapted the Red Riding novels for television.

In which American city did the first stage adaptation of The City & the City have its premiere?

Chicago's Lifeline Theatre staged Christopher M. Walsh's script in 2013 as a world premiere. A month into the run, the theatre billed a lobby book signing and a post-show talk with Miéville.

The Spectator traced The City & the City's dreamlike side to which author of Labyrinths?

Jorge Luis Borges was the reviewer's first comparison, ahead of a French anti-detective novel by Alain Robbe-Grillet. The same review called the book fantastic in the everyday sense too.