Exploring the potential of using “heterotopia” concept in the analysis of urban fantasy

The concept of “heterotopia” was proposed to the scientific discourse by Michel Foucault, and now it can be useful for the analysis of a fictional city. However, at first it must be clarified. In the article it is proposed to explore a text about the fictional urbis, paying attention not only to the opposite of “one’s own” and “another’s”, “center” and “outskirts / deviation”, but also considering the functions of heterotopia. Heterotopia is disturbing and makes you defend your worldview. It violates the logic of our existence and statements, habitual classifications, values and connections. However, it is no longer perceived as an intolerably threatening reality. The existence of everyday life and heterotopia, the recognition of both entities as legitimate, sets a new possibility: if there is no idea of the reality uniqueness, then sometimes it is possible to create a new reality, without any social conventions. This practically created utopia is imposed above the known boundaries and generally outside the confrontation between “one’s own” and “another’s”, not as a precedent, but as a single existential act. By the example of urban fantasy by China Mieville “The City & the City”, this trend can be seen in the actions of the narrator, police officer, Tjader Barlow. As a result of play-of-meanings, given to different locations, and due to the practical cancellation of borders, the hero single-handedly creates a new ontology. In fact, the author gives him renaissance features, although the idea of the work, introduced to the readers, is as if did not imply such consequences. At the same time, Mieville emphasized that his text can be a subject to metaphorical interpretation.