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Istanbul Istanbul (2016)
7.0/10on Open Library
Published
Four prisoners beneath Istanbul tell stories about the city above them. Read for the sudden turns into jokes and riddles, and how much of the city a handful of voices can bring into a cell. Translated by Ümit Hussein.
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Kafamda bir tuhaflik (2015)
10.0/10on Open Library
Published
In A Strangeness in My Mind, a vendor named Mevlut sells boza on winter nights as Istanbul changes around him. Pick this long novel to see decades of change at walking pace, as the same work takes Mevlut through a city his neighbors and relatives understand differently. Translated by Ekin Oklap.
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Berji Kristin: Tales from the Garbage Hills (1996)
Published
Huts go up on a hill of garbage. When bulldozers flatten them, their residents build again. Read for the way the settlement’s shared stories give the hill a history as quickly as its residents give it streets. Translated by Ruth Christie and Saliha Paker.
More about Berji Kristin: Tales from the Garbage Hills4
Silence of Scheherazade (2021)
Published
In The Silence of Scheherazade, a Levantine, a Greek, a Turkish, and an Armenian family give the same streets of Ottoman Smyrna different meanings. The intersecting households are the pleasure of this sprawling historical novel and a reason to read it slowly. Translated by Betsy Göksel.
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Leyla'nin Evi (2012)
Published
In Leyla’s House, an eviction takes an elderly woman from a Bosphorus mansion into a neighborhood where a hip-hop singer becomes her friend. Choose it for how much an unlikely friendship can reveal about who feels at home in a changing city. Translated by Brendan Freely and Yelda Türedi.
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Motherland Hotel (2016)
Published
A hotel owner near a railway station waits for a guest who said she would come back. This short novel turns check-ins and other ordinary hotel routines into the measure of a fixation. Read it when you want a place that feels smaller and more airless by the page. Translated by Fred Stark.
More about Motherland Hotel7
Snow (2002)
7.3/10on Open Library
Published
A blizzard isolates Kars just as Ka, a poet returning from exile, arrives to investigate a wave of deaths. The closed roads make an already divided city feel like a room nobody can leave. Choose it for political intrigue tangled up with a homecoming. Translated by Maureen Freely.
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The time regulation institute (2013)
8.0/10on Open Library
Published
If a slow clock could earn you a fine, who would decide what time it really was? Hayri Irdal finds himself inside an institution with an elaborate scheme to standardize Turkey’s clocks. Pick this one for the comic pleasure of watching an official system become more elaborate than the problem it was built to solve. Translated by Alexander Dawe and Maureen Freely.
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A mind at peace (2008)
8.0/10on Open Library
Published
On the eve of World War II, a love story unfolds in Istanbul. The novel gives music as much room as ideas or romance, a reason to choose it if you like a city revealed through what people listen to and remember. Translated by Erdağ Göknar.
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Bir deliler evinin yalan yanlış anlatılan kısa tarihi (2009)
Published
The Highly Unreliable Account of the History of a Madhouse begins at an asylum near the Black Sea. Before you can settle on one person’s story, Ayfer Tunç has found someone connected to it and followed that thread. Try it for the pleasure of seeing a whole social world emerge from digressions. Translated by Feyza Howell.
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Istanbul Was a Fairy Tale (2012)
Published
Three generations of a Jewish family carry different versions of Istanbul through the decades. Try it if you enjoy a family saga that makes room for people at the edge of its central story. The longer you stay with its cast, the harder it is to imagine just one account of the city. Translated by Ender Gürol.
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Endgame (2016)
Published
A man comes to a sun-baked Turkish town expecting quiet. This is the small-town noir to pick if the most interesting question for you is whether the person telling the story knows what he has walked into. Translated by Alexander Dawe.
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Memed, my hawk (1961)
Published
Memed grows up in a mountain village whose landlord can dictate nearly every part of his life. Choose this adventure for a change of terrain: in the mountains, the distance between a village and somewhere to hide has consequences. The NYRB edition credits Edouard Roditi for the English translation.
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SUMMER'S END (2008)
Published
A writer on vacation by the ruins of Side looks beyond the holiday setting to the people who pass through it. Pick this for the contrast between the depth of history at a Mediterranean resort and the fleeting encounters of a visit. Translated by Figen Bingül.
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The Gaze (2006)
10.0/10on Open Library
Published
A dictionary of stares and a public spectacle in 1880s Istanbul give this offbeat novel two ways to think about being seen. Choose it when you want a city drawn through looks exchanged between strangers, with an odd, funny structure and room for discomfort. Translated by Brendan Freely.
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