texts (out of copyright and therefore free) or that extracts were often over-long and Through not always arranged in a helpful manner for actual visitors. Right from the start we decided that variety and liveliness would be our watchwords – we’d consider absolutely other eyes any prose genre (fiction, biography, history, travel-writing, diaries, letters, memoirs, Bored stiff by traditional guidebooks? Jennifer Hattam journalism, blogs ...) by writers from the suggests finding your way in the company of a new literary most famous to the totally unknown, anthology and offers a sampling of its writings that put familiar provided the writing was good enough and really illuminated some aspect of the city. places in a new light And the emphasis would be on recent or stanbul’s layers upon layers of history a ‘literary meze’ course. contemporary work. We tend to start the are part of the enduring appeal of books with a section on why people love Ithe city to many travellers. Over the Where did the idea for the ‘city-pick’ series the city, or what is special about it. But centuries, visitors and residents alike come from? while we always emphasise the positive, have created their own literary strata of We were in Athens for the first time. We’d we do include some darker material where recorded first impressions, letters home, read the standard guidebooks but the city appropriate. All cities have their undersides family histories, urban legends, journalistic was still somehow different from what and in creating a meaningful collage explorations and fictional tales of the city we’d expected: they hadn’t really helped portrait, we can’t ignore obvious realities. – layers of meaning more hidden than the us ‘get under the skin’ of the place. minarets added on to Hagia Sophia but just Malcolm decided what we needed was a How did you go about finding the pieces in as important to understanding Istanbul. good anthology that would show us the the Istanbul book? Editor Heather Reyes has collected city through the eyes of the best writers We always work with people based in the snippets of such writing from the early on it – particularly recent writers. When we city who can help us find material that we 1700s to the present day in ‘city-pick couldn’t find one, we decided there might might otherwise miss if we relied solely on Istanbul’, the ninth and latest release from be a market for a series that did just that our own research. This was particularly the the UK-based Oxygen Books. Reyes and – let perceptive writers take you around case with Istanbul. Because Istanbul has Oxygen cofounder Malcolm Burgess started the world’s greatest cities, showing you such a rich history and has been written the company to publish the ‘city-pick’ all aspects of them, giving you a ‘feel’ for about by travellers for many centuries, series, anthologies that gather the best them, not just information about them. we’ve included some extracts from the city writing about a particular metropolis. 18th and 19th centuries – but only those The passages that appear in the following What makes these books different from we felt were relevant to present-day pages are all excerpts from the Istanbul other volumes of travel literature? visitors, or gave an insight into the past title, which features works by more than 60 There were, of course, some already which has helped to shape the present city. authors. Reyes spoke to Time Out Istanbul existing anthologies on cities, but we But as with all our books, the overwhelming about putting together what she’s dubbed found they were often a bit heavy on older majority of extracts are by 20th- and 21st- 16 www.timeoutistanbul.com/en June 2013 century authors. Istanbul was, above all, a wonderful descriptions of Istanbul. In an real journey of discovery into the breadth age when one click of your computer can and depth of Turkish literature. give you photos and films of just about any city in the world, it’s hard to imagine How did putting the book together affect just how exciting it must have been, in your view of the city? earlier times, to arrive for the first time in When I start work on a book, the first a city like Istanbul. The early to mid-20th thing I do is get hold of an excellent history century seems less well covered – but of the city – in this case I began with Turkey was going through a period of great Philip Mansel’s ‘Constantinople: City of turmoil then, and visitors (apart from those the World’s Desire, 1453-1924’, which with a military connection) were fewer and was utterly fascinating. I’d had no idea, certainly less inclined to enthuse about for example, that some of the Ottoman the place. But from the late 20th century sultans had positively encouraged both to the present has seen another great Jews and Christians to come to the city, flowering of writing about Istanbul as it has recognising the health of what we would really come into its own as a destination for call a ‘multicultural’ society. The extreme intelligent tourism. sophistication and physical beauty of the Ottoman court was also a revelation Do you see these books more as a form – though the possibilities of violence of armchair travel or as the type of were probably even greater than in Tudor alternative guidebook you envisioned on England. that initial trip to Athens? One of my favourite books on the They are intended to be both – and we modern city was by eminent Dutch travel know they are used as both. We have kept writer Geert Mak: ‘The Bridge: A Journey our books to a size that slips easily into Between Orient and Occident’. It uses different, but read Turkish authors and your luggage and can be carried around the Galata Bridge as a focus for stories listen to Turkish voices and you realise town if you want to read as you go. The about the city and its people – the ordinary how very similar we are. But I also gained books are well indexed so that you can look people of Istanbul who make the place some insight into the political and social up particular locations or themes and read what it is, just as much as its extraordinary difficulties of the 21st-century city, and the what various writers have said about them. architecture. You can’t begin to get under part played by the huge level of immigration We like to think that the books encourage the skin of a city unless you have some from other parts of the country which has visitors to open their eyes to more than the insight into the lives of its citizens, in all made Istanbul grow into one of the world’s surface of a city, and encourage them to their variety. And once you get past the most highly populated cities. be curious and open-hearted towards the barrier of language – and Turkish is not place and the people. the easiest language to get your brain Were there particular eras from which around! – you realise the commonality the writing about Istanbul seemed most city-pick Istanbul was published in 2013 of experience. The buildings, the water, prolific or compelling? by Oxygen Books, Ltd. www.oxygenbooks. the history, and even the religion may be Nineteenth-century travellers provide some co.uk June 2013 www.timeoutistanbul.com/en 17 The Galata Bridge rlando’s day was passed, of brass-bound wheels, while way forwards, pushing through compartmentalisation. The Oit would seem, somewhat sour odours, made from bread humanity into the middle fishmongers, for example, in this fashion. About seven, fermenting and incense, and of the bridge – which takes all hail from the eastern he would rise, wrap himself spice, rose even to the heights fifteen minutes to traverse. city of Erzincan. Most of the in a long Turkish cloak, light a of Pera itself and seemed the Suddenly the crush from all professional anglers come from cheroot, and lean his elbows very breath of the strident sides is so great that we can’t Trabzon, on the Black Sea. The on the parapet. Thus he multicoloured and barbaric catch our breath. Because rods and tackle, on the other would stand, gazing at the population. they have opened the bridge hand, are sold generally by city beneath him, apparently Virginia Woolf, ‘Orlando’ (1928) to allow a schooner into the immigrants from Kastamonu entranced. At this hour the inner military port, the stream and there’s no getting around mist would lie so thick that nwards and onwards in of people has halted, and at them. And if you’re Kurdish the domes of Santa Sofia and Odroves they come. Women that same moment a steamer there is no sense in trying the rest would seem to be from Damascus wrapped from Scutari has spilled out to rent a space and fry fish, afloat; gradually the mist would in colourful floral veils that hundreds more people onto for that monopoly is in the uncover them; the bubbles make it impossible to see the same spot. But it’s only a hands of another group. On the would be seen to be firmly fixed; so much as an eye; Moorish moment, and then we can once other hand, though, you could there would be the river; there women, almost all unlovely, again move ‘freely’, elbowed move into the cigarette trade the Galata Bridge; there the but constantly smiling and and trodden on from all sides.