It's a metafictional device. Invisible cities is fundamentally postmodern. Calvino is constantly putting forward that he is writting about imaginary cities, wh

It's a metafictional device. Invisible cities is fundamentally postmodern. Calvino is constantly putting forward that he is writting about imaginary cities, which are both literrary tricks, conceptual allegories, references and products of the story teller own experience. This is true of all fiction but here it's laid bare.