Istanbul

· Vintage
2.8
281 reviews
Ebook
400
Pages
Eligible
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About this ebook

From the Nobel Prize winner and acclaimed author of My Name is Red comes a portrait of Istanbul by its foremost writer, revealing the melancholy that comes of living amid the ruins of a lost empire.  

"Delightful, profound, marvelously origina.... Pamuk tells the story of the city through the eyes of memory." —The Washington Post Book World

A shimmering evocation, by turns intimate and panoramic, of one of the world’s great cities, by its foremost writer. Orhan Pamuk was born in Istanbul and still lives in the family apartment building where his mother first held him in her arms. His portrait of his city is thus also a self-portrait, refracted by memory and the melancholy—or hüzün—that all Istanbullus share.

With cinematic fluidity, Pamuk moves from his glamorous, unhappy parents to the gorgeous, decrepit mansions overlooking the Bosphorus; from the dawning of his self-consciousness to the writers and painters—both Turkish and foreign—who would shape his consciousness of his city. Like Joyce’s Dublin and Borges’ Buenos Aires, Pamuk’s Istanbul is a triumphant encounter of place and sensibility, beautifully written and immensely moving.

Ratings and reviews

2.8
281 reviews
A Google user
Orhan Pamuk is a novelist from Turkey who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2006. He was also nominated for the prestigious Neustadt International Prize for Literature in 1992 and 2006. Pramuk was the first author in the Muslim world to denounce the fatwa against Salman Rushdie over “The Satanic Verses.” For this simple reason, I would like to read all his novels to know more about this gutsy individual.
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About the author

Orhan Pamuk's novel My Name Is Red won the 2003 IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. His work has been translated into more than twenty languages. He lives in Istanbul.

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