Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk has set most of his novels here, including
Cevdet Bey & His Sons
(1982),
The
White Castle
(1985),
The Black Book
(1990),
The New Life
(1995),
My Name is Red
(1998) and
The Museum of
Innocence
(2009). In 2005 he published a memoir,
Istanbul: Memories of a City
.
Literary Visitors
Foreign novelists and travel writers have long tried to capture the magic and mystery of İstanbul in their work.
One of the earliest to do so was French novelist Pierre Loti, whose novel
Aziyadé
(1879) introduced Europe to
Loti's almond-eyed Turkish lover and to the mysterious and all-pervasive attractions of the city itself. Another
notable work from this period is
Constantinople
(1878) by Italian writer Edmondo De Amicis.
Historical novels set here include
The Rage of the Vulture
(Barry Unsworth; 1982),
The Stone Woman
(Tariq
Ali; 2001),
The Calligrapher's Night
(Yasmine Ghata; 2006) and
The Dark Angel
(Mika Waltari; 1952).
Set in the modern era, Alan Drew's 2008 novel
Gardens of Water
is about two families in the aftermath of the
devastating earthquake that struck western Turkey (including İstanbul's outskirts) in 1999.
The city also features as the setting for some great crime novels, including Barbara Nadel's Inspector İkmen
novels (the first of which is
Belshazzar's Daughter,
1999); Jason Goodwin's Yashim the Ottoman Investigator
novels (
The Janissary Tree,
2006); Jenny White's Kamil Paşa novels (
The Sultan's Seal,
2006); and Mehmet
Murat Somer's Hop-Çıkı-Yaya series of gay crime novels (
The Prophet Murders,
2008).
