Istanbul. Memories of a City.

First edition. 8vo. Pp. [viii], 348. Burgundy paper covered boards, lettered in gilt to spine; tan endpapers. B/w photographic illus., w/ index. Translated from the Turkish by Maureen Freely. Faber edition precedes the US Knopf edition.

Signed by Orhan Pamuk and additionally by Freely, to title page. Minute closed tear to crown of spine, else Fine.

Cultural history of a great city through the prism of a personal memoir. Blending reminiscence with history; family photographs with portraits of poets and pashas; art criticism, metaphysical musing, and, now and again, a fanciful tale, Orhan Pamuk invents an ingenious form to evoke his lifelong home, the Istanbul that forged his imagination. The concept of hüzün – shared melancholy – overhangs the city and its residents. Winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature. Its citation reads in part: "In the quest for the melancholic soul of his native city, [Pamuk] has enlarged the roots of the contemporary novel through his links to both Western and Eastern culture."