{"id":493175,"date":"2025-10-12T08:49:25","date_gmt":"2025-10-12T08:49:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/493175\/"},"modified":"2025-10-12T08:49:25","modified_gmt":"2025-10-12T08:49:25","slug":"five-books-to-read-to-understand-istanbul-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/493175\/","title":{"rendered":"Five books to read to understand Istanbul today"},"content":{"rendered":"

Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free<\/p>\n

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.<\/p>\n

This article is part of FT Globetrotter\u2019s guide to Istanbul<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cStop! Let the coffee water boil \/ Tell me about Istanbul, how was it?\u201d asks the Anatolian rocker Cem Karaca in his anguished ballad \u201cAlways Suffering\u201d.<\/p>\n

Karaca, who spent eight years in political exile in the 1980s, implores his companion to \u201ctell me people laughed there\u201d, adding: \u201cI like it, even if it\u2019s a lie.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The conflict between the romantic image of Istanbul and the myriad struggles of its inhabitants is a theme that runs through many of the books below, which I\u2019ve picked for their accessible routes into Turkey\u2019s history, culture and modern politics. They also offer levity, beauty and some great stories. <\/p>\n

Reading them brought back memories of my seven years working in the country as a correspondent.<\/p>\n

Enjoy over a cup of piping-hot black tea or a short, bracing Turkish coffee \u2014 ideally with an Istanbul street cat curled up at your side.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018Midnight at the Pera Palace\u2019 by Charles King (2014)<\/strong><\/p>\n

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This is the story of the birth of modern Istanbul, told through the city\u2019s famous Pera Palace hotel. King, a Georgetown professor with an eye for a good story, gallops through the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the decades that followed in a whirl of excitement, upheaval and violence. The book is filled with colourful tales about spies, Bolshevik assassins and a dance joint called Maxim that \u201chelped train an entire generation of Istanbullus to do the foxtrot\u201d. It is also a lament for the Greeks, Jews and Armenians who were once a central part of the city\u2019s fabric but fell victim to the modern Turkish republic\u2019s mission to \u201csqueeze\u201d the population into \u201ca single national identity\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u2018Dare to Disappoint: Growing up in Turkey\u2019 by \u00d6zge Samanc\u0131 (2015)<\/strong><\/p>\n

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On one level this is a deeply personal graphic memoir by Samanc\u0131, a US-based artist who was born in 1975 and grew up in the coastal city of Izmir. But it also tackles a raft of political topics and helps unlock the answers to some pressing questions: why are there pictures of Atat\u00fcrk everywhere? Why do so many Turkish parents want their children to become engineers? Why was it a forbidden pleasure in the 1980s to eat cornflakes? This is a sweet, irreverent and also practical companion to understanding life in Turkey. It\u2019s also short \u2014 and can be read in one fell swoop over five or six glasses of \u00e7ay (tea).<\/p>\n

\u2018Istanbul, Istanbul: A Novel\u2019 by Burhan S\u00f6nmez (2015)<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Watching the sun set over the Bosphorus or ambling down a cobbled Beyo\u011flu street, it can be hard to reconcile the beauty and charm of a visit to Istanbul with the headlines about relentless political repression under President Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan. This novel by Burhan S\u00f6nmez, the Kurdish novelist and current president of PEN International who lives between Istanbul and Cambridge, seeks to bring those two worlds together. An absurd and sad prison novel set in grim underground cells, the characters tell stories to forget the pain of their torture and keep themselves alive. Set in an unspecified time, it could unfortunately apply to much of the past century as cycles of repression and retribution have repeated themselves, seemingly without end.<\/p>\n

\u2018Istanbul: Memories and the City\u2019 by Orhan Pamuk (2003)<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Turkey\u2019s Nobel laureate deals with sibling rivalry, art, love and melancholy in this book, which is partly the story of his own childhood, part biography of Istanbul. Some passages, such as his descriptions of Istanbul as a drab \u201cblack-and-white city\u201d that \u201chas been in decline for a hundred and fifty years\u201d, are barely recognisable in the colourful, frenetic megacity of today \u2014 although crushing poverty is still rife. Other aspects are evergreen. He muses on the impact of urban development on memory and culture. He wrestles with Turkey\u2019s \u201clove-hate relationship with the western gaze\u201d. And he explores what it means to love a place and use it as a canvas when, in reality, \u201canything we say about the city\u2019s essence says more about our own lives and our own states of mind\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u2018To the City: Life and Death along the Ancient Walls of Istanbul\u2019 by Alexander Christie-Miller (2024)<\/strong><\/p>\n

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A beautifully written and sharply observed guide to the sociopolitical conflict of the Erdo\u011fan era, told through the story of Istanbul\u2019s old Byzantine city walls and the people who live among them. Christie-Miller gives space to a government supporter who finds yearned-for solidarity in the ruling party\u2019s community networks, a Kurdish political activist fed up with being treated by his neighbours like a cave-dweller, and a woman who embodies Istanbul\u2019s extraordinary commitment to street animals by running a shelter that cares for 3,000 dogs. He lets their stories unfold slowly, telling them with empathy and interest. Unusually, the book intersperses these tales with the story of Mehmet the Conqueror and his vanquishing of the city in 1453 \u2014 a moment that is a \u201ctalisman of modern Turkish identity\u201d and is constantly evoked by today\u2019s president.<\/p>\n

Which books best evoke Istanbul for you? Share your recommendations in the comments below. And follow us on Instagram at @ftglobetrotter<\/a><\/p>\n

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