Istanbul is a shimmering evocation, by turns intimate and panoramic, of one
of the world's great cities, by its foremost writer. Orhan Pamuk, winner of
the Nobel Prize in 2006, was born in Istanbul, 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.