2006

Banquet speech

Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen I am deeply grateful for the honor bestowed on me by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. It is an honor I share with many collaborators. My wife Yahli has been my closest collaborator. She has borne a double burden. She is the wife…

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Prose

English Excerpt from Istanbul: Memories of a City (Istanbul: Hatıralar Ve Şehir). Here we come to the heart of the matter: I’ve never left Istanbul – never left the houses, streets and neighbourhoods of my childhood. Although I’ve lived in other districts from time to time, fifty years on I find myself…

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Banquet speech

Why do you write? This is the question I’ve been asked most often in my writing career. Most of the time they mean this: What is the point, why do you give your time to this strange and impossible activity? Why do you write … You have to give an excuse, an…

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