num_pages: 348
description: 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: the sadness that comes of living amid the ruins of a lost Ottoman Empire.As he companionably guides us across the Bosphorus, through Istanbul's historical monuments and lost paradises, its dilapidated Ottoman villas, back streets and waterways, he also introduces us to the city's writers, artists and murderers.Like the Dublin of Joyce and Jan Morris' Venice, Pamuk's Istanbul is a triumphant encounter of place and sensibility, beautifully written and immensely moving.
language: English
title: Istanbul: Memories and the City
titlecomplete: Istanbul: Memories and the City
genres: Biography, Turkish Literature, Turkish, Memoir, Nonfiction, Literature, Autobiography, Nobel Prize, Travel, History
ratings_count: 19543
places: Istanbul
awards: awardedAt: 1104566400000
name: National Book Critics Circle Award
category: Autobiography/Memoir, awardedAt: 1104566400000
name: Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction, awardedAt: 1230796800000
name: Metų verstinė knyga
publisher: Faber & Faber