Istanbul Guide

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Contemporary Novelists The second half of the 20th century saw a raft of İstanbul-based writ ers and poets published locally and internationally. Many were social ists, communists or outspoken critics of the government, and spent long and repeated periods in jail. The two most famous were Nâzım Hikmet (1902–63), whose masterwork is the five-volume collection of lyric and epic poetry entitled Human Landscapes from My Country; and Yaşar Kemal (b 1923), whose best-known work is Mehmed, My Hawk. Two of Kemal’s novels – The Birds Are Also Gone and The Sea Crossed Fisherman – are set in İstanbul. High-profile writer Elif Şafak was born in Strasbourg in 1971 to Turkish parents and now divides her time between London and İstanbul. Her best-known novels are The Flea Palace (2002), The Saint of Incipient Insanities (2004), The Bastard of Istanbul (2006) , The Forty Rules of Love (2010) and Honour (2012). Şafak’s novels often address issues that are controversial in Turkey (eg honour killing, gay identity, the Armenian genocide, sex before marriage). Her most recent novel, The Architect’s Apprentice (2014), revolves around the life of the Ot toman architect Mimar Sinan. It, The Flea Palace and The Bastard of Istanbul are all set in the city. Arrested after the 1980 military coup, left-wing activist Izzet Celasin (b 1958) spent several years in a Turkish jail before being granted political asylum in Norway. His debut novel Black Sky, Black Sea (2012) is a semi-autobiographical story about young activists in İstanbul during the period of political unrest in the late 1970s. The timing of the novel’s release (just before the Gezi protests of 2013) made it resonate both in Turkey and overseas.

Turkish novelist, poet, songwriter and film director OZ Livaneli (b 1946) has written 15 bestsellers but only one, the acclaimed 2003 novel Bliss ( Mutluluk in Turkish), is available in an English-language edition. Dealing with weighty issues such as honour killing and partially set in İstanbul, it was made into a film in 2007.

İstanbul on Page & Screen İstanbul in Print

ORHAN PAMUK When the much-fêted Orhan Pamuk (b 1952) was awarded the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature, the international cultural sector was largely unsurprised. The writing of the İstanbul-born, US-based novelist had already attracted critical accolades, including the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, The Independent newspaper’s Foreign Fiction Award of the Month and every local literary prize on offer. In their citation, the Nobel judges said that in his ‘quest for the melancholic soul of his native city’ (ie İstanbul), Pamuk had ‘discovered new symbols for the clash and interlacing of culture’. The only voices heard to criticise their judgement hailed from Turkey. Pamuk had been charged with ‘insulting Turkishness’ under Article 301 of the Turkish Criminal Code (the charges were dropped in early 2006), and some local commentators alleged that in his case the Nobel Prize was awarded for political (ie freedom of speech) reasons rather than purely on the merit of his literary oeuvre. Pamuk has written 10 novels to date. His first, Cevdet Bey & His Sons (1982), is a dynastic saga of the İstanbul bourgeoisie. It was followed by The House of Silence (1983), The White Castle (1985) and The Black Book (1990). The latter was made into a film (Gizli Yuz) by director Omer Kavur in 1992. After this came The New Life (1995), My Name is Red (1998) , Snow (2002) , The Museum of Innocence (2009), A Strangeness in His Mind (2015) and The Red-Haired Woman (2016). In 2005 he published a memoir, Istanbul: Memories of a City, about the city he loves. In 2012 Pamuk opened the Museum of Innocence (p131), his conceptual art pro ject occupying an entire house in Cihangir. This was inspired by his novel of the same name, and has proved to be popular with locals and tourists alike. Grant Gee’s 2015 documentary film Innocence of Memories: Orhan Pamuk’s Museum and Istanbul, which is narrated by Pamuk, is set in the museum and at locations featured in the novel.