City

Istanbul

Orhan Pamuk gave Istanbul its defining emotion: hüzün, a collective melancholy that settles over the city like the mist off the Bosphorus. It is the sadness of empire — two empires, in fact — layered into the stone of every crumbling Ottoman mansion and Byzantine ruin. Pamuk mapped this interior Istanbul the way Joyce mapped Dublin, turning the city into a state of mind. But Istanbul resists any single interpretation. The Sahaflar Çarşısı, the old book bazaar, has sold literature since before Constantinople fell. The ferries still cross between continents in twenty minutes. The call to prayer still echoes off the same domes that once echoed with Christian hymns. This is a city that has been the center of the world twice and remembers both times. It carries that weight in its architecture, its literature, and the way light falls on the water at dusk.

Last updated 4 days ago