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Interview: Özge Samancı on her graphic novel; Dare To Disappoint, Growing up in Turkey

Some people are damn good with words! You experience similar things, but they happen to have the knack for interpreting your feelings when your words would fall short. Özge Samancı is one of those people gifted with story telling. I could have finished...

A Bibliophile’s Haven #2 SALT Research Library

One of those places that makes me feel at home...Some of my friends know where to find me if I have disappeared for a while: No, it is not a guest house on the Aegean, it is a library in the city. I am talking about SALT Galata! Adorable building...

A bibliophile’s haven #1: BU Library

I was away. I have been neglecting the blog. It got me exhausted. No! "When in april, the sweet showers fall/ that pierce March's drought to the root and all/ and bathed every vein in liquor that has power/ to generate therein and sire...

Levni and the Surname

The transition from the Arabic alphabet to the Latin one, the disconnection from the Ottoman past with the foundation of the Republic, and turning to the West -whilst being located right in the Middle East- have no doubt resulted in casualties, one of which...

Vintage #1 Postcards from Constantinople

Vintage Constantinople postcards are somehow still popular in Istanbul after more than a hundred years they were first printed. It was Max Fruchtermann, an Austria-Hungarian entrepreneur, who opened a shop in Pera and popularized the picture postcards...

The Museum of Innocence

THE SYMPOSIUM ON THE MUSEUM OF INNOCENCEFinally 10 years after Orhan Pamuk, Turkish Nobel Laureate started writing the story of Kemal and Füsun, the museum, which bears the same name as the book, opened. Right after its opening, a symposium focusing...

Hagia Sophia, the Mosque

A rare photo of Ayasofya Mosque depicting the last prayer of muslims held. A gem from the archive of Othmar Pferschy, who hopped on the Orient Express to come to Constantinople and witnessed the drastic transformation of the new Republic and Istanbul...

Pamuk’s Istanbul

"When Istanbullus grow a bit older and feel their fates intertwining with that of the city, they come to welcome the cloak of melancholy that brings their lives a contentment, an emotional depth, that almost look like happiness. Until then they rage against...

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