Cities are like despots that tyrannize their inhabitants, forcing them to endure solitary existences, and defining people by the standards they dictate... Stories from a Walled City is a poetically narrated story about the conflicts between individual and city, an issue that has recently become very popular. The author also shares with the readers of this collection various different, yet not-so-different, stories that in fact all combine to form a knot of mysteries, pains, fears, wise men, women, love, and death. This is a smart fictional account of elements of Eastern culture set in an exotic, sometimes historical, background. Ali Ayçil wins the reader over through his mysterious and mesmerizing narrative; he invites you in through the doors of Eastern secrecy.