Best of
Turkish

2007

My Father's Suitcase: The Nobel Lecture


Orhan Pamuk - 2007
    This emotional speech which sincerely conveys the spirit of Pamuk’s thirty two years of writing effort, had a deep, worldwide impact. This book combines “My Father’s Suitcase” which is a basic text about writing and living with Pamuk’s two other speeches in which the same subjects and problems are discussed from other perspectives. “The Implied Author”, the speech that Pamuk gave when he received the Puterbaugh Prize given by World Literature magazine, in April 2006 is about the psychology of writing and the urge and adventure of being a writer. Pamuk’s other speech, “In Kars and in Frankfurt” that was given when he received the Peace Prize given by the German Publishers Associations in October 2005 is investigating the power of the writer to put himself in another’s place and the political consequences of this very natural human talent. My Father’s Suitcase consists of three speeches that are seen as a whole by their writer.It’s a unique, personal book on what writing is, how to become a writer, life and writing, the writer’s patience and the secrets of the art of novel (from the author's website)

Porcelain Moon and Pomegranates: A Woman's Trek Through Turkey


Üstün Bilgen-Reinart - 2007
    A bridge between Europe and Asia, between West and East, between Christianity and Islam, the peninsula also known as Anatolia, the place where the sun rises, is one of the oldest continually inhabited regions on the planet.In this unique blend of memoir and travel literature, Üstün Bilgen-Reinart explores the people, politics, and passions of her native country, whisking the reader on a journey through time, memory, and space. She searches deep into the roots of her own ancestry and uncovers a family secret, breaks taboos in a nation that still takes tradition very seriously, and navigates through dangerous territory that sees her investigating brothels in Ankara, probing honour murders in Sanliurfa, encountering Kurds in the remote southeast, and witnessing the rape of the earth by a gold mining company in Bergama.

Istanbul: Poetry of Place


Ateş Orga - 2007
    When Mehmed the Conqueror first wandered through the ruins of the Byzantine palace, it was with the words of the Persian poet Ferdowsi on his lips: The spider spins his web in the Palace of the Caesars/An owl hoots in the towers of Afrasiyab. Since then the silhouette of thousand-year-old domes and tapering minarets, the sunsets reflected nightly in a thousand palace windows and the bustle of her markets have inspired Sultan Suleyman, W B Yeats and Nazim Hikmet, amongst others, to salute one of the world's most remarkable cities.