In the News (from previous months)

Istanbul: Memories and the City
by Orhan Pamuk; translated by Maureen Freely (Knopf, 384 pages; $26.95). Part biography of a city and part autobiography, Istanbul: Memories and the City is a meditation on the many layers of meaning a city accumulates, almost a prose poem on the history of this great city and of Orhan Pamuk’s own place within that history. Even if you didn't know Pamuk as the author of acclaimed novels such as Snow,even if you had no familiarity with Istanbul as a city, Pamuk's memoir, Istanbul: Memories and the City, would still be a fascinating literary adventure.

In part tales of the city (laden with many photographs), in part the portrait of the artist as a young man, it is overall a skillful literary exercise using the personal to map a larger portrait of a society at a crossroads

Highly Acclaimed Turkish Film Set in Germany
Head-On, which won the Golden Bear in Berlin, five German Lolas, and three major European Film Awards, has verve and is well grounded in dealing with the subject of identity and culture clash between two people from different European countries.

A marriage of convenience in Hamburg between two troubled Turks changes both their lives in this fine, gritty, contemporary love story. Director Fatih Akin dives deep into Turkish culture and explores the slippery slope of identity and cultural pride faced by Turks who either move to or are born in Germany.

Although enthusiastically reviewed in the Contra Costa Times (February 11, 2005), the film opened only in Berkeley and San Francisco. Some East Bay Friends of Merzifon may have to wait for the DVD.

Turkey's History Inspires a Fine Novel
Recently both the San Francisco Chronicle and Newsweek magazine have enthusiastically reviewed a novel set in Turkey that begins just before World War One.

Louis de Bernieres is the author of Corelli's Mandolin, a best selling novel that was made into a movie. His new book, Birds without Wings is darker and as Newsweek says, "De Bernieres takes his cues from Tolstoy – his characters' stories are always played out against the scrim of history."

As the review says, "Turkey is a novelist's dream, or perhaps a land dreamed by a novelist."