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.Since the publication of Istanbul , Pamuk has continued to add to his collection of photographs of Istanbul. Now, he has selected a range of photographs for Illustrated Istanbul , linking each new image to his memoir.
This lavish selection of 450 photographs features contributions from Ara Güler, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Istanbul's characteristic photography collectors, and contains previously unpublished family photographs from the author's archives.
