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  • Istanbul

  • Memories and the City
  • Written by: Orhan Pamuk
  • Narrated by: John Lee
  • Length: 9 hrs and 46 mins
  • 4.7 out of 5 stars (11 ratings)

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Istanbul cover art

Istanbul

Written by: Orhan Pamuk
Narrated by: John Lee
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Publisher's Summary

From the Nobel Prize winner and acclaimed author of My Name is Red comes a portrait of Istanbul by its foremost writer, revealing the melancholy that comes of living amid the ruins of a lost empire.  

"Delightful, profound, marvelously origina.... Pamuk tells the story of the city through the eyes of memory." —The Washington Post Book World

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.

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 and painters—both Turkish and foreign—who would shape his consciousness of his city. Like Joyce’s Dublin and Borges’ Buenos Aires, Pamuk’s Istanbul is a triumphant encounter of place and sensibility, beautifully written and immensely moving.
©2013 Orhan Pamuk (P)2013 Random House Audio
Entertainment & Celebrities Art & Literature World Middle East Travel Writing & Commentary
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What the critics say

2005, National Book Critics Circle Awards, Finalist

2006, Nobel Prize, Winner

"Far from a conventional appreciation of the city's natural and architectural splendors, Istanbul tells of an invisible melancholy and the way it acts on an imaginative young man, aggrieving him but pricking his creativity." (The New York Times)

"Brilliant...Pamuk insistently discribes [a] dizzingly gorgeous, historically vibrant metropolis." (Newsday)

What listeners say about Istanbul

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Profile Image for Grantie

Beautiful

Very surprised how much I enjoyed this autobiography. Especially after I found his critically acclaimed novel Red so tedious, I could only get half way through it

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