(Ebook) Istanbul: Memories and the City by Orhan Pamuk, Maureen Freely (translation) ISBN 9781400033881, 1400033888

(Ebook) Istanbul: Memories and the City by Orhan Pamuk, Maureen Freely (translation) ISBN 9781400033881, 1400033888

A shimmering evocation, by turns intimate & panoramic, of one of the world’s great cities, by its foremost writer. Orhan Pamuk was born in Istanbul & 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 & the melancholy–or h?z?n– that all Istanbullus share: the sadness that comes of living amid the ruins of a lost empire.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 & painters–both Turkish & foreign–who would shape his consciousness of his city. Like Joyce’s Dublin & Borges’ Buenos Aires, Pamuk’s Istanbul is a triumphant encounter of place & sensibility, beautifully written and immensely moving.