Christoforos Sisamos
September 2026, Cyprus. Ten people meet at a shipowner’s house above Kourion, on ground that belongs on paper to a king whose face is on none of their coins, on the eve of the Exaltation of the Cross. A retired Supreme Court judge asks the smallest question she can find: what is a citizen? By midnight, every answer offered has been tested and broken.
They decide that the citizen cannot be seen without a city to see her in. So they will build the city, in speech, one chapter at a time, each in a different real place on the island, chosen because it argues back. Then they will go out and see who comes.
The record is kept by the court stenographer who was at the table. She writes it the day after, unimproved, and it goes out at once, because that was the condition. Eleven chapters are planned. This is the first.
36 minutes to read, 56 to hear. Free, both of them.
Do Not Erase
The second class of the primary school, empty on a Sunday
What is education for, and can a citizen be made?
Written · 36 min · opens with the bookThe Line
A National Guard post, and the walk down Ledra Street
Who is inside?
Written · 35 min · opens with the bookNoise
A server room
Can a city think when a machine ranks its thoughts?
Written · 35 min · opens with the bookThe Ward
The surgical ward, at night
What is a person, and what does care owe?
Written · 35 min · opens with the bookThe Mountain of the Cross
Stavrovouni monastery
What does the city owe the Church, and the Church the city?
Written · 43 min · opens with the bookThe Tomb
Tymvos Makedonitissas, the military cemetery
What may a just state ask a man to die for, and who may ask it?
Written · 36 min · opens with the bookThe Port
A ship under management
What is owed: money, property, work.
The Theatre
The theatre at night, with an audience
What is art for?
The Assembly
Somewhere they must choose
The democracy worth being born again.
The Founding
They go out
Whoever reads the plans and shows up.
The book is being written. Each chapter goes out when it is finished rather than years after the last one, which is what the book itself says it is doing, so there is no reason for the page to pretend otherwise.
“If you are reading this, it is because I kept the condition, and because the judge was right about one thing at least: she said the people who read it would be the ones it was for.”
The first chapter is free to read, here, in full. Twelve euro gets you the other ten as they land and the finished book at the end. One payment, no subscription. If it is never finished, you get your money back.
The first chapter is free. Ten more are planned, each one somewhere real on the island, and each goes out as it is written. This buys all of them as they land, and the finished book at the end. €12.
That is it. Every chapter lands here as it is finished, and this browser will already know it is yours.
It is not finished yet. You are buying something that is being written, and if it never is, you get your money back. Terms and privacy.