The City and the City

China Miéville’s The City and the City, originally published in 2009, is a hybrid of two distinct genres—speculative fiction and detective fiction—that explores the human susceptibility to fear and the erection of borders as a response to that fear. Other themes examined in the novel are political corruption, violence inspired by far-right politics, and the allure of myths. The City and the City is the winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the World Fantasy Award, the Hugo Award for Best Novel, the British Science Fiction Association Award, and the Locus Award. In 2018, the novel was made into a television miniseries by the BBC.

Plot Summary

When Mahalia Geary, a Ph.D. student in archaeology, is found dead, Inspector Tyador Borlú of the Extreme Crime Squad is assigned to the case. The underlying premise of the novel is that two cities/countries—Besźel and Ul Qoma—occupy the same time and space but have developed distinct languages and cultures; so distinct and separate, in fact, that citizens from each city are forbidden from looking into the other (clearly visible) space. Doing so is a serious crime invoking the intervention of Breach, a mysterious secret police force known for “disappearing” breach violators. Borlú determines that Geary was killed in Ul Qoma and her body dumped in Besźel, but the killer has managed to avoid Breach involvement. Video footage clearly shows a van crossing borders legally to leave Geary’s body in a Besźel skate park. Borlú seeks to turn the investigation over to Breach authority, but his request is denied (unusual, since these requests are often a formality). With the case his sole responsibility, Borlú and his partner, Lizbyet Corwi, investigate the possible involvement of far-right extremist groups, but ultimately, they find themselves at a dead end.

With all avenues exhausted on the Besźel side, Borlú’s superior assigns him to pursue the investigation in Ul Qoma as a consultant to Senior Detective Qussim Dhatt, his Ul Qoman counterpart. Their investigation leads them to Bol Ye’an, an archaeological dig site where Geary was working on her Ph.D. dissertation. They discover she had become obsessed with Orciny, a mythical third city supposedly existing in the spaces between Besźel and Ul Qoma, whose citizens manipulate the activities in the other two cities. The foundational text in support of this now-debunked theory is David Bowden’s Between the City and the City, a text she has read closely and annotated in minute detail. When Geary’s closest friend, Yolanda Rodriguez, disappears, followed shortly thereafter by Bowden, Borlú and Dhatt suspect Breach may be involved. Borlú finds Rodriguez hiding out in an abandoned public housing project, afraid for her life—she also believes in Orciny and their mystical powers and is terrified her knowledge of them will get her killed. He promises to evacuate her safely to Besźel. At this point, even Borlú cannot say unequivocally whether Orciny is real, and he enlists the help of a skeptical Dhatt—as well as the loyal Corwi—to assist him in Rodriguez’s rescue. Forged documents in hand, they escort Rodriguez to the border checkpoint between the two cities. As they near the crossing, Bowden appears, but just then, shots are fired. Rodriguez is killed, Dhatt is wounded, Bowden is taken into custody, and the shooter disappears into the crowds.

Borlú pursues the shooter, each of them in different cities, Borlú seeing and “unseeing” the shooter at the same time. When his quarry seems poised to escape, Borlú shoots him across borders, a clear violation of breach. Breach avatars swarm out of the shadows and take him into custody. His overseer is Ashil, who questions him about Orciny. He realizes that Breach doesn’t know any more than he does and also fears the existence of the third city. The investigation continues with Ashil now, and they question Bol Ye’an security about possible stolen artifacts (reputed to be Orciny relics endowed with strange powers). They discover that Geary had been stealing excavated items and leaving them in a “crosshatched” area of the dig site where someone from Besźel could retrieve them without causing breach. Geary was under the misguided impression she was helping Bowden find proof of Orciny, but in fact, Bowden is selling the relics to a multi-national corporation, Sear and Core, with the help of politicians and extremist groups. It’s a complex web of alliances with Bowden at the center, and when Geary discovers his plan, he kills her.

As Ashil and Borlú piece together the clues, a sudden commotion rocks Breach headquarters. Two busloads of refugees have intentionally collided, scattering migrants—unfamiliar with border protocols—out into the streets. Breach scrambles to contain the situation, which they realize is the opening salvo in a unificationist insurrection. Ashil and Borlú follow a lead to the Sear and Core building, where they find a corrupt politician, also involved in Bowden’s scheme, attempting to escape. In the confrontation, both the politician and Ashil are shot. Amid the chaos on the streets, Bowden, who had been in custody, escapes. With Dhatt’s help, Borlú tracks him down. Bowden, deftly navigating the space between borders, intends to walk free out of the jurisdiction of either police force. Borlú, however, convinces him to surrender.

A few days later, with the insurrections quelled, borders reestablished, and Bowden in Breach custody, Ashil recruits Borlú as a member of Breach. No longer Tyador Borlú—he is now an avatar of Breach—he walks the streets of both cities, resident of “both the city and the city” (373).